Baba Who? Babalú!

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...

I have written before about the road of Babalú-Ayé called Soyaya , who is strongly associated with Olocun, the oricha of the bottom of the sea. While these two share deep mysteries and untold wealth, I have wondered about their connection, and this week I think I understand it a bit better. Being in San Francisco for the Earth Medicine Alliance Conference , I decided to spend some time at UC Berkeley exploring the papers of the anthropologist William Bascom, who spent the summer of 1948 researching Africanisms in Jovellanos, Matanzas Province. He spent days discussing Lucumí and Arará traditions with the famous Esteban Baró, an African-born child of Ochumaré, the oricha of the rainbow, who is also known as Dan or Güeró. At some point, their conversation turned to Olocun, and Baró explained laconically, "Olocun is the Earth of the sea, oldest of all the orichas."

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...

Because Babalú-Ayé spent many years living as wanderer on the road, many people consider him to be one of the owners of the road. Within the Regla de Ocha, better known as Santería, most deities have different manifestations, which people call caminos or roads. Old priests and priestesses say that the messenger and trickster Elegguá has more roads than any other deity. Some say he has 101 roads, but others say he has 256. After Elegguá, Babalú probably has more roads than any other divinity. I have documented more than sixty, but I am sure that future travels will reveal more. Different people imagine these roads in different ways. My teacher, Ernesto Pichardo—Obá Irawó of Miami, uses a family metaphor: “Babalú-Ayé is like the last name they all share, but the road is like the first name.” Others conceive of the roads as reflections of different stages or etapas in the lives of the divinities. And many people do speak of the youngest and oldest roads of different deities. These...