Baba Who? Babalú!

Next weekend, the Earth Medicine Alliance is holding its first annual conference in San Francisco. The conference unites many people involved in Earth-based spiritual traditions, ecotherapy, and advocacy for the natural world. With a remarkable diversity of speakers from different perspectives, the conference should result in an exchange of compelling dialogue and energizing ideas. Together with goddaughter Phoenix Smith, I will be presenting an experiential workshop titled Babalú-Ayé: Healing Self and Earth in African Diaspora Orisha Tradition. Designed to help people get to know Babá, the workshop will include ritual, storytelling, reflection, and play. The following day, Phoenix and I will lead an awán for Babalú at Heron's Head Park, an EPA Super Fund site.

So I have set a new goal for myself: I have decided to rewrite the Wikipedia entry on Babalú-Ayé with the goal of making it more encompassing of the diversity of orisha religion's history and practice as well as rich in detail. I would love feedback on the proposed text. In the religious system of Orisha worship, Babalú-Ayé is the praise name of the spirit of the Earth and strongly associated with infectious disease, and healing. He is an Orisha, representing the Supreme God Olodumare on Earth. The name Babalú-Ayé translates as “Father, Lord of the Earth” (Idowu 1962:95) and points to the authority this orisha exercises on all things earthly, including the body, wealth, and physical possessions. In West Africa, he was strongly associated with epidemics of smallpox, but in the contemporary Americas, he is more commonly thought of as the patron of leprosy, influenza, and AIDS (Thompson 1993:216). Although strongly associated with illness and disease, Babalú-Ayé is also the deity t

I have an infectious disease. I have been sick for three weeks with what started as a nasty cold. Little Natalya started daycare in September, and by week two she had a runny nose. A week later I had a runny nose and a sore throat. Then a week after that I had a sinus infection, complete with a headache, a fever, pain in my teeth, and lots of discharge from my nose. After two visits to the doctor, lots of home remedies, a seven-day course of antibiotics and more decongestants than you can imagine, the mucus has turned from dark green to bright yellow. My colleagues will tell you it is isn’t pretty, and my very honest wife will tell you it’s just gross. It certainly has humbled me, as I try to maintain both my workload and my decorum through sneezing, coughing, sweating, and revolting nasal discharge. Ay, Babalú-Ayé, fiyedenu. Babalú, have mercy on me. We all struggle to stay healthy from time to time, but we are not always successful. We slide from health—iré aicú, the blessings o

There are many ways to give Babalú-Ayé, and I never tire of contemplating the ceremonies as a vessel for information about the oricha. One Matanzas lineage I know takes Babalú-Ayé on a journey as they prepare to give him to a new initiate. They take Babalú out to a cemetery and feed him with a guinea, white wine, and cigar smoke. Then they continue to the foot of a ceiba tree, where they do the whole ceremony again. Next they feed Babalú a rooster on the altar for the ancestors at the house where the main ceremony is to take place. While I have thought about this imagery in terms of travel and the Earth, the ancestors play a strong role here as well. By taking Babalú to the cemetery and feeding him with the many ancestors there, the ceremony stresses his role as an egun. Similarly, the ceiba was historically where people in Cuba went to salute the ancestors and pray when the dead actually lay buried at too far a distance—the Africans used to feed their ancestors at the ceiba,

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 the se

Check out this video of the young people of Juanelo dancing Babalú-Ayé in a folkloric performance. The opening scene shows the dancer rising up like the oricha. Later, he dances with a crippled leg and two jaces to clean himself.  He presumably enacts possession, as people call "Aso!" The other dancers capture the subtle body movements, transforming from stiff to confident in their movements. Notice that a dog just happens through.

Many people in Cuba have told me that after Changó and Ochún, Babalú-Ayé is the most popular oricha in the religion; it is true that those who know him definitely love him. Still I am always surprised by quickly people will simplify this complex character. I recently found a website about Cuban culture that suggests that “ he has simple tastes and does not expect much .” This contradicts directly what I know about Babalú-Ayé, both from my elders and from my experience. My elders have said over and over—and I have repeated it like a chorus to my own godchildren, “You can negotiate with any other oricha, but you cannot play with Babalú-Ayé.” With this, the elders imply that there is simply too much at stake: to play with Babalú is play with your health, and only a fool—a “moron” as one of my beloved godparents might say—would do that! I was taught that we have to be extra careful when we do ceremonies for Babalú-Ayé, because he is so demanding, exacting, what Cubans call “majadero.”