Baba Who? Babalú!

Two weeks ago, I was in San Francisco to participate in the good work of the Second Earth Medicine Alliance conference . As we did last year , my goddaughter Phoenix Smith and I led a public ceremony focusing the oricha’s energy on healing the Earth. Last year we did an awán for Babalú, and this year Elegguá directed us to perform an awán for Olocun along the edge of San Francisco Bay. Phoenix found an amazing little park in West Oakland, right next to the port facilities, and just before the ceremony began, she learned that people refer to this area as one of the points of the toxic triangle in the Bay. The area where we worked last year is also one point of the triangle, and next year we plan to work the third point. The ceremony was beautiful. We had about fifteen people turn out on a gorgeous day. We set up an altar right on the beach for egun, Elegguá, and Olocun. To honor the spirits of that place, we sat on the beach with the ancestors for an hour or so, sharing messages fro...

The story from Irete-Otura says that Agrónika Omó Bitasa was a potter, a craft he had learned from his father, Asojano. When he is captured by the Iyesá, he is making plates. Often people refer to Babalú-Ayé as a warrior, a wanderer, a wounded healer and a king, but I can think of no other reference to the Old Man working as a potter. Two things about this idea intrigue me. Art historian Suzanne Blier makes clear that in Benin shallow plates, called agban in Fon-gbe, are one of the sources that inspire vessels used to hold the sacred objects of the deities (in Sacred Arts of Vodou , p. 68). When the word agban evolves to follow the pronunciation commonly used in Afro-Cuban communities, the “gb” sound becomes a “gu” or “w” sound, and this produces the Arará word “ awán ,” the name given to the most important ceremony performed for Asojano, where plates are laden with offerings of food and dried grains.   So here Asojano the potter is honored through a ceremony with many pl...

The sign Irete-Otura recounts the birth of a little known road of Babalú-Ayé called Agrónika.   The story goes like this: There was a Potter named Omó Bitasa who was the favorite son of Asojano, and he was famous for making beautiful plates, a skill he had learned from his father. When he was small, his father had also initiated him with a partridge and dressed in the skins of his favorite animals, and this protected him from much suffering. In those days, the Iyesá declared war on the Arará. They surprised Omó Bitasa working on his plates and carried him away as a slave. One day there was a terrible epidemic in the land of the Iyesá, many people were dying, and no one could stop it. Egunmoko, the king of Iyesá, went for divination, and Irete-Otura came out.   The diviner said in the kingdom was a man initiated in Arará and only he could end the epidemic.   Reviewing the prisoners, Egunmoko found one dressed like Shakuaná with his purple cape and his necklace. The ki...

Linked again and again to the kiti are praise names for the elusive oricha Naná Burukú: Okitikatá aparamalobe Okitikatá akparamanyin Referred to alternatively as the wife, elder sister, or grandmother of Babalú-Ayé, Naná Burukú is widely considered an ancient and important deity. She is often referred to as the mother of sweet waters, both under and above the ground. For this reason, she is sometimes fed at springs and pools of stagnant water. She is considered primordial and even primitive, older than iron, and so people make sacrifices to her using a wooden knife, usually fashioned from bamboo—a plant strongly associated with the ancestors and Naná.   There is much respect—even fear and danger—associated with Naná Burukú. Ernesto Pichardo has told me that few of his elders wanted to get close to her.   Like Odudua, Boromu, Brosia, Yewá and Iroko, Naná Burukú is an earth-bound force associated with the night. Old timers acknowledged that these forces exist, but ...

I am not sure that they have celebrated the Feast of Babalú-Ayé in this way since Armando Zulueta —Omí Toké joined the ancestors in 1990, but I have heard the descriptions again and again with little variation. The ceremony started on December 16th in the house of Octavia Zulueta—Jundesi with an Arará drumming. No one told me whose drums they were or who played. Perhaps they were from the next block over at the Sociedad Africana de Santa Bárbara . Perhaps they came from the Fernández house in Agromonte, though I did not see drums there. Perhaps they came from Jovellanos or Matanzas City. When orichas or fodunces , as the Arará sometimes call the deities, came down, they would leave Octavia’s house near the cemetery and walk to Armando’s, where they would salute his Babalú-Ayé. After midnight, once it was in fact December 17th, the whole ceremony would move too. At Armando´s, they did the awán for Babalú-Ayé and then fed Afrá, Nanú, and the Old Man on the back patio, just outside ...

I am still trying to figure out how to talk about my recent trip to San Francisco to lead a public awán for Babalú-Ayé. I am still a bit uncomfortable with the fact that I don’t have a big, overarching narrative that wraps the whole thing up, but I have a number of small stories that show how delightful it was to be in service to the Old Man. I wanted to do something special for Babalú-Ayé at this awán, so several weeks prior I learned a new rezo , a fast-paced and verbally complex chant to invoke him. I had been practicing for several weeks. My plane arrived early, and as I waited for my ride, I practiced the chant outside in the arrivals area: Ago yéme du quina quina su salva su gome du quina Ago yéme du quina quina su salva su gome du quina quina Mero goyeme dupe-un pe-un Mero goyeme duquina Mero goyeme duquina quina Mero goyeme dupe-un Gudun bite kodo kiodo ni sawa ni soniye Gudun mite kodo kiodo ni sawa ni soniye mode ni amo emanoso ijenoso Ella keleguesun k...

As I prepared to travel to San Francisco to teach people about Babalú-Ayé and lead a public awán, I had an interesting little dream: I was sprinkling fresh, green leaves on top of Babalú. Simple enough till you starting thinking through the associations and implications. First, I should say this sort of thing actually happens. At the end of the awán , someone leaves the ritual (no pun intended) and carries the basket and the sack cloth bundle to the forest. After depositing the bundle with the offering, she gathers fresh, green leaves in the basket, and upon returning to the house, these are sprinkled on top of Babalú’s vessel. I was taught that this was to cool Babalú, who is sometimes called Ilé Gbona (The Hot Earth) by the Yoruba. It is not that Babalú is angry at the end of the awán, just that he is hot by nature. The whole exchange removes heat and negativity, only to replace it with freshness, coolness. Most elders know specific ceremonies to cool other orichas, usually when ...

Perhaps no other plant is more closely associated with Babalú-Ayé than cundeamor . Not only do many people cover his vessel with this herb, some houses wrap cundeamor around the horns of the goats they offer to Babalú. In fact, as part of the awán , everyone present must place a strand of this climbing vine around their neck. At the end of the ceremony, these necklaces are cast off and into the basket. Cundeamor grows aggressively at the end of the rainy season, fruits near Babalú’s feast day on December 17th, and then dries up and disappears completely. The fruits have a distinctive brilliant yellow-orange color and bright red seeds. Cundeamor  acts just like the deity: emerging at the beginning of the dry season, he grows toward his feast only to disappear again. Not only does its growing habit mimic Babalú, both the leaves and fruits of the cundeamor have a long and well-documented history as a medicinal herb. In Cuba, both Momordica charantia and Momordica ba...

I went to Havana on a mission, so I suppose you could say I was a missionary for Asojano. I went to feed my godfather’s Asojano and play for him. It was not a requirement but something that made sense to me, given the many blessings I have received lately from Asojano . My plane left Baltimore late, so I had missed my connection and spent three extra days in Jamaica trying to be patient. When I finally arrived in Havana, the customs officials interviewed me at length about why I was in Cuba, who I was visiting, what I was carrying. After forty-five minutes, they searched my two small bags and found exactly what I said they would find. I went straight from the airport to Calle Guasabacoa in Luyanó where the ceremony was to take place. The dramatic throne was already up, and Asojano was waiting for me with seven jaces . Fifteen minutes after I arrived, we started the ebó by feeding the ancestors with a rooster, a hen, and a dove. We gave cocos, they said Eyeife, good to go. Forty...

+ I I 0 I I I I I Pedro Abreu—Asonyanye also writes the sign Ogbe-Otura under the awán basket. Nicknamed Ogbe-Tuanilara, this sign is often referred to as the place where Asojano’s secrets were born and where illness was spread across the world. These may or may not have anything to do with each other, but it is interesting to notice these things share the same source. Which of Asojano’s many secrets are born here? The secret of what goes into the já to make it powerful? The secret that goes into the beaded and be-shelled bracelet called the cachá? The secret that Pedro places inside the covered vessel where Asojano eats? The secret place where he eats? The secret that Jundesi planted behind the house of Armando Zulueta? The sign does include a long story about why oricha priests and priestesses perform their cleansing offerings—why they make ebó—with Eleguá. Eleguá wants to know the secrets of Osain, the oricha of the secrets of the forest. In the process, his mother transf...

These seeds are central to the practice of Lucumí religion. Called Guinea pepper, Alligator pepper, or ataré , the seeds of the Aframomum melagueta appear in critical places in every major ceremony of the religion. Specific numbers of the seeds are used to “mark” or identify the presence of specific orichas. The ancestors are usually fed on a plate where 9 ataré sit on a pool of palm oil resting in 9 small pieces of coconut. The herbal concoction used to birth orichas is also coded with a specific number of ataré. Ochún’s osain takes five ataré, while Obatalá’s takes eight. When people really want to excite Elegguá, they will sometimes take seven ataré in their mouths and chew them, before taking a swig of rum and blowing the mixture out onto Elegguá. I was taught that it intensifies the aché of the prayers uttered. In Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites , Omosade Awolalu says Yoruba people still use it the same way. So why is this particular kind of pepper so import...

 + I  I I  I O O I  I Pedro Abreu—Asonyanye uses signs under the awán basket and includes Irete Meyi. He glosses the sign as the spirituality of Asojano, and I have heard other babalawos say the same thing. Some people add that this sign is Babalú-Ayé in person. Nothing else gets said; apparently it is not necessary in the laconic style of the religion. Other things also appear in this sign: it is the birthplace of the bubonic plague, pleurisy, pestilent fevers, syphilis, leukemia, and leprosy. It speaks of illnesses in the legs and even paralysis. It also seems to rule skin diseases: it is the birthplace of eczema, abscesses, and furuncles. Some people say that smallpox was born here, but others insist it was born in Odí-Eyeunle. The sign also rules pimples on the skin. In Cuban Spanish, the word granos means both “pimples” and “grains.” So in some way, the universal offering to Babalú, the gourd filled with grains and beans, can be thought of a gathering ...

Santería priests work with bread in many contexts. There are only a few things that every oricha will eat: fruit, coconuts, the tamales called ekó, and bread. Seventeen rolls on a plate is a common offering to Babalú-Ayé, and in some house you even see them nailed to the inside of the door frame as a concrete prayer for a constant supply of food to enter the house. They are also placed in the bottom of the awán basket when they honor Babalú. What could be more essential, more basic, than bread--that ancient mixture of wheat, water, leavening, and fire? Bread remains "the staff of life." And as a culinary imperative, it holds a special place in the imagination of many cultures. Bread is the most basic food, the sine qua non of Western cuisine. Some writers have even seen bread as the best symbol for human beings' transformational impact on nature. It is the raw, and then cooked, as Levi-Strauss pointed out. As a basic building block of the Cuban diet, its inclusion i...

As I reflected on the intersection of charcoal and Ojuani Meyi, I discovered something interesting. It turns out that the sign Ofún-Ojuani represents an important nexus of the various themes that surround Babalú-Ayé. I have a tratado that says explicitly that in this sign is born:  the secret of charcoal (and ashes); the curse of the color black; the pilgrimage; and the great secret of Shakuaná.  It is interesting to note that the sign also includes a recipe for the creation of Ibako, the prenda of Oluó Popó. While there is no story explaining the secret of charcoal or the curse of the color black, there is a story explaining the use of colored cloth in the crowning of new oricha priests. It lists black as the color for Shakuaná (though I should say that I think most people would say it should be red). The tratado does provide some detail about the great secret of Shakuaná. It says that before he was Asojano, he was called Kelejewe Kuto, and he had to die ...

So Pedro Abreu—Asonyanye includes the divination sign Ojuani Meyi as one of the atenas he writes under the awán basket. He says it is the birth place of Asojano’s vessel and ritual broom, his cazuela and his já . Priests like Abreu see themselves as ceremonialists, claiming that every ritual is a contemporary expression of a timeless story from a particular odu. In Ojuani Meyi is where Asojuano came down to end the war between Guinea and Partridge. In ancient times Guinea Hen and Partridge were the witches of the forest. They were both so strong in their witchcraft that they entered into a battle to the death, dragging all their followers into the struggle. While they cast great spells, terrible epidemics assaulted the Earth, and their children emerged from their eggs with witchcraft. Their young were witches by birthright. (Since that time, their eggs have been used in dangerous witchcraft.) So many were the deaths that Alakaso carried the news to Heaven. There, he found no one...

One of the most beautiful and intriguing things about the world of the orichas is the incredible sophistication and differentiation that exists both in the use of substances for ritual and the complex narratives that represent certain timeless truths. While some people stress one of these aspects over the other, in fact both traditions remain very important and vital. My next few posts will explore these traditions in relationship to Babalú’s awán. Those who follow the lineage of Armando Zulueta—Omí Toké crumble charcoal at the bottom of the basket used in the awán. My teacher Ernesto Pichardo taught me to do this, explaining that the charcoal moves us into the realm of the unknown, the mysterious. However, he also taught me to consider carefully the substances that we use in the religion to gain a better understanding of their inherent aché. When organic materials like wood are burned in the absence of oxygen, they produce charcoal. It takes great skill to stack wood and burn it i...

Perhaps the most common ceremony for worshiping Babalú-Ayé is the awán . In the ceremony, a basket is lined with sack cloth with many plates of cut-up food encircling it. Some elders say 13 plates, some say 17, and some even say 77 plates must be present. After sunset, participants gather round the basket and taking handfuls of food from each plate into their closed hands, rub the food around their bodies to remove negativity or osobo. Each handful of food is cast into the basket, until everyone has cleansed themselves. People are also cleansed with a speckled rooster, a guinea hen, two eggs and the já, the ritual broom of Babalú. Different lineages finish the awán in different ways, but these things remain pretty stable wherever you go. Those who work the awán in the so-called Lucumí tradition follow the Arará-Dajomé lineage of Armando Zulueta. They place things at the bottom of the basket to begin. They crumble charcoal and add a peice of brea...

Key to understanding Babalú-Ayé is the fact that he moves: he moves out of the land of the Lucumí and into the wilderness. He moves out of the wilderness and into the land of the Arará. He becomes king of a foreign land. More simply, he moves from well-being to destitution and back to well-being. In addition to moving physically from place to place, he moves people´s emotions with his suffering. It is impressive, unforgettable even, to see people imitating him in the caminata, as they drag themselves along the pavement. The sound alone sticks with you, but their bloody hands and knees remind you of the pain you have lived through. In Spanish, the verb conmover captures both this shared moving and being moved. Even in the ceremonies that the now-dead elders taught to the living, Babalú-Ayé moves. In many houses, he travels to the ceiba tree and then again to the cemetery, eating at each stop. He then travels to the family shrine for the dead--the egun--and again shares a meal w...