Baba Who? Babalú!

My comadre Raquel Fernández (left) was made by her older sister, Magdalena (center), in 1964. Raquel's oyugbona was José María Hernández-Arioza--Omi Niqué, who had been made by Margot San Lázaro, the famous Havana priestess. Magdalena had been made the year before, and her oyugbona was another of Margot's godchildren, Irene Zúñiga--Ochún Bí.  Magdalena tells the story of how Margot became identified with Asojano: Margot was being made to Yemayá in a Lucumí house, but as she sat in the initiation and the elders called down the orichas, it was not Yemayá who came down but Asojano. In those days, Pilar Fresneda--Asonsiperaco from the Sabalú cabildo was the undisputed expert in such things, and Margot's elders reached out to her. When she arrived at the house, she found Asojano speaking in his famously froggy and hard-to-understand voice. She sang to Asojano in Arará, and he responded just as he was supposed to. This was a beautiful Asojano, an unforge...

Elders often refer to Babalú-Ayé as the oricha of the Earth, and his name alludes to this fact. Ayé means “world” or “earth,” so the whole name translates as “Father, Lord of the Earth.” The Earth supports us in all we do and is thought of as the universal witness of our actions. Forbearers of the Arará in Cuba, the West African Fon, traditionally made oaths with one hand on the Earth. In fact, husbands and wives would promise to be loyal to each other as they drank an herbal mixture with Earth mixed into it, knowing that the Earth would see if they broke their promise and in turn punish them. This bit of West African tradition intrigues me, because most lineages in Cuba include a bit of Earth in the herbal mixture called osain,  which is made to wash and cool the oricha when he is born. One Matanzas lineage I know focuses on travel and Earth as they prepare to give Babalú-Ayé . They take Babalú out to a cemetery and feed him with a guinea, white wine and...

They had already fed the drums by the time I arrived. They stood in a line in the courtyard with their heads covered with the offerings. Pedro Abreu—Asonyanye is conscious that he is renovating the Sabalú tradition. He talks about the fact that he has initiated more priests to Asojano than anyone else in history: to date he has initiated twenty-nine people. He has compiled traditions from all over Cuba and created an innovative and unique ceremony for giving Asojano. He has elaborated the initiation of priests in surprising ways. In his inimitable, charming, and understated way, he occasionally quotes of one his godchildren who said, “You have created something here.” As part of his renovation, he has also gone to great efforts to build and consecrate his own set of Arará drums. Pilar Fresneda—Asonsiperaco had a set of drums at her cabildo, and they are now in Pogolotti (see below). Pedro wanted to play them, but in a repetition of history, the cabildo’s current leaders refused t...

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...

Last week, I was in Havana, making ebó to Asojano and giving him an Arará drumming. As part of my regular visits to people I know, I traveled to Reparto Mañana, tucked in between Regla and Guanabacoa. There I visited my comadre Raquel Fernández—Obá Kedun. I have known Raquel since 1997, when I started working in the house of her godson, Saul Fernández—Baba Ni Belequé. In 1999, she supported me in a highly charged initiation ceremony in Centro Habana, and a few years back I received the Ibeyi from her. Although I have known her for many years, it was only recently that I learned that she was married to Rafael Linares—Emerego until his death on December 9, 1985. Arará people in Havana often remember Linares as a knowledgeable and meticulous priest of Asojano. He grew up in the religion. His father was Alberto Linares, the babalawo Ogbe-Roso, and his stepmother was Joaquina Sánchez—Towá. Their house was a gathering place for religious practitioners of their generation. On June...

+ 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...