Baba Who? Babalú!

Babalú-Ayé is always mysterious:   h e is a stranger wandering in from somewhere else. He speaks in a voice that is hard to understand, so you can never be sure what he is trying to say.   And so much of the experience of illness and of the body in pain remains beyond our ability to articulate. Like the Old Man, we fall mute in the face of these things.   Of course, no one really understands how he can push on despite the many losses he has suffered. Few of us can fathom how he continues despite smallpox and his bad legs. You sense this mystery when you witness Asojano being fed at night in a dark room lit only with a couple of candles. You sense it when you prostrate before Babalú enthroned in a cave obscured by vines or covered in herbs during ceremonies.   In some lineages he lives in a sealed pot, so the people worshipping him never see the fundamento inside. The elders say that they sealed the pots to contain disease and keep it from escaping. Othe...

As I have pointed out in other posts, Babalú-Ayé has many, many roads —perhaps more than any other oricha. Here is story from Oyekún Biká about a road called Soyaya. In the land of Dassa, there was a bokono , as the Arará call their babalawos. This bokono was called Juanlani and his sign was Oyekún Biká. He was plagued by many struggles with other bokonos, and one day he divined for himself. His own sign came out, indicating that he should give Babalú-Ayé a goat, a rooster, a guinea hen, smoked fish with jutía , cocoa butter, cascarilla, rum, a coconut, and money. Babalú-Ayé, who was called Tokuen in Dassa, said his brother Soyaya could solve his problem. Soyaya lived with the oricha Olokun at the bottom of the sea, so Babá sent Juanlani to take the ebó to seashore and call Soyaya with a gongoli , a old-fashioned wooden bell. Three times Juanlani did this and Soyaya did not appear. At the end of the third day, as Juanlani was leaving, a beautiful green and gold fish leapt from th...

So little is known about Nanú that many elders refer to her simply as “the mother of Babalú-Ayé,” “the mysterious one,” or “the stronghold” or “strength.” She is related to the other roads of Babalú-Ayé and has many of the same functions. She comes to remove obstacles to health and well-being, and she is treated in much the same way as other manifestations of Babalú: she is treated with great respect because of her awesome power. She is feared because death is always with her, and she too rules infectious disease. She is secretive, but provides important revelations. She is wealthy beyond our understanding. She lives in the wilds and wanders on the road. She struggles with how to express moral ideals in an imperfect world. She seems to be dead, only to rise again. Nevertheless, her iconography and ceremonies are slightly different from the other Babalú-Ayés. Nanú has a broom, which is received by her devotees the first time she eats goat. The já points to her work as cleans...

Lucumí and Arará elders use many different names to refer to Babalú-Ayé, and they associate many different images with this oricha. There are ritual images: as with most orichas, a covered pot—the terra-cotta cazuela—houses the objects sacred to this deity in most lineages. The já, the ritual broom, cleans illness off the devout. There are two metal crutches and two metal dogs that come from the popular Roman Catholic image of San Lázaro, the poor man of Biblical fame. Altars for Babalú-Ayé also include offerings: candles light the way and incense floats up from the floor, filling the air with smoke and smells. Toasted corn rests before him. Perhaps the most common offering is a gourd filled with black beans and topped with a red onion. As patron of life’s material necessities, Babalú is said to rule over all grains and beans. For Cubans, most of whom love black beans and eat them almost daily, black beans represent the staff of life—their daily bread. The beans’ dark color reiterat...