Baba Who? Babalú!

When working in Dahomey, Herskovits recorded a very interesting story: When people came into the world, they had no medicine. No one knew that leaves could cure. When people fell ill, there was no knowledge of what to do to cure them. Now there were hunters in those days who went into the deep, deep bush. One day a hunter came upon a mound of Earth in the bush. When he was about to pass it, a voice spoke from inside it. The hunter’s wife was a leper, and the voice said, “Hunter, I will show you a medicine to cure your wife. When you give it to her, she will become well again.” Then the voice said, “Turn your back to me and wait.” It was Azizan, the Forest Spirit, who was in the mound, and as the hunter’s back was turned, Azizan put the leaves beside him. When Hunter looked again, he saw the leaves. The voice said, “Take these leaves, crush them, and mix them with water. Then give some of this to your wife to drink, and use the rest to wash her sores.” When the hunter came...

I continue to reflect on differing aspects of pilgrimage in the Yoruba and Dahomean worlds. The grounded elder Susanne Wenger in her book A Life with the Gods in their Yoruba Homeland writes about a wandering sort of pilgrimage: If the god wishes it, a Shoponno priest goes from town to town as a mendicant, the living recipient of ritual gifts (formerly copper coins) which are means of atonement for the giver. He dresses in a short camwood-red smock, his hair finely plaited. On his frock, cowry shells and little bells are sewn as a warning of a dangerous god’s arrival. As he proceeds on his way, reciting the praise songs of Obalúayé and all the cult [ sic ] subsections, broom--straws are thrown at him together with the coins. In picking them up, he adds prayers on behalf of the donor to his recitations. The blossoming broom-shrub is his alter ego, but can be impersonated by the the broom of palmleaf stalks [known in Cuba as the já ]… The mendicant uses the donated coins for ...

So today I am reflecting on pilgrimage. Partly I am trying to honor the major spiritual work of the festival of Babalú and the thousands of people who made the journey to Rincón last weekend. Partly I am trying to prepare myself, because this summer I hope to walk the Road of Santiago with my thirteen-year-old. Moving toward the divine is a very old practice. The ancestors name its origin in the divination sign Ofún-Ojuani, and they taught us the value of this kind of prayer. In old Dahomey, the ancestors held an annual pilgrimage to Dassa-Zoumé. The ancestors said this was where Nana Burukú lived when she was on Earth, and each year those who worshiped her children Mawu-Lisa, the Obatalá-like sky deities, carried offerings to her special shrine there. Similarly, new initiates to Mawu-Lisa made a trip to Dassa to worship Nana Burukú. When they arrived, everything was provided for them. However, only the greatest and most powerful priests of Nana Burukú entered the temple becaus...

While we were calling and feeding Babalú-Ayé as part of his annual feast, the great NPR show On Being posted a nice piece on the public festival in Rincón, Cuba. Check out the mainstreaming of the Father of the World here !

I first met Pedro Abreu in 2001. David Brown had been telling me about him for a few years at that point and when David introduced us, I immediately understood David’s fascination. The first time we met, Abreu outlined his whole history in the religion. He was born in Los Sitios in Centro Havana. He had a prenda from the African-inspired Regla de Congo from a young age, but he had not really believed in religion. In 1975, he received Asojano-Afimaye in Havana from Matilde Sotomayor—Asoninque, the famous Asojano priestess who worked with Pilar Fresneda—Asonsíperaco . The famous Ñica Fernández—Onojome and Victor—Quemafo were also there. On February 20, 1992, Abreu made Asojano- Afimaye at the Cabildo Arará Sabalú Nonjó in Matanzas City. It had been 36 years since anyone had made Asojano there, but his godmother María Isabel Reyes—Asonsímeneco did have Asojano made direct as tradition required. At itá he given the oricha name Asonyanye, after the famous Havana priest know...

Dasoyí , the father of all the Babalús, is the most common road of this oricha today, but the next most popular is Afimaye.  His white beads with blue stripes are perhaps the most commonly used for Babalú-Ayé . This path of the oricha is said to be the youngest of the Asojanos, and some say he lives in a pumpkin plant and works as a lawyer. Some say he also comes to find the initiates to Arará deities at the hour of their passing. Afimaye’s youth evokes a physical strength and vitality for which he is renowned. When worshipped, he is famous for reinvigorating his devotees.  In the house of Magdalena Fernández in Havana, I once participated in giving Afimaye to an 84 year-old woman. At the beginning of the ceremony, she sat speechless and inert, slumped over in a chair watching the ritual.  After she was cleaned, Afimaye ate and then mounted her. After contorting for a few minutes, she rose and danced with great power for half an hour. Later she was a different w...

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...

When Ña Octavia Zulueta—Jundesi gave Babalú-Ayé to the nine-year-old Armando Zulueta , she taught him that they were Arará-Dajomé, and he in turn passed this idea down to his family and godchildren. This is interesting because in common parlance today, Armando’s Babalú is commonly referred to as Lucumí. While the Lucumí label may have come from the fact that Armando made santo much later in a Lucumí house, it also provides a short-hand description of differences in form and practice that matter a lot to some people. But I want to explore the idea that the Babalú-Ayé and the people who work him in Perico really are Arará-Dajomé. Aurora Zulueta-Omí Saidé was Armando’s favorite niece and goddaughter, and before she joined the ancestors in 2002, she told me that she had always known they were Arará-Dajomé. She reminded me that the Arará had their own language, and she explained that they did not “mojuba” the same way as the Lucumí. Instead of repeating “mo juba” to invoke each...

Many Lucumí and Arará elders think and talk about the orichas and fodunces as having different stages, or etapas , to their life histories. Similarly, my godfather Ernesto Pichardo—Obá Irawó has long urged me to look carefully at the natural qualities of the orichas and the ingredients we use in ceremonies to deepen my understanding of the workings of the religion. Recently while contemplating Nana Burukú with my friend and godson Eguín Koladé, we realized that it is possible to think of the different stages of Nana Burukú as different moments in a specific water cycle. Often referred to as the mother of fresh water, Nana Burukú is often fed at the spring, where water emerges out of the ground.   A spring is usually located up on the side of a hill, so it does lead to a sense of elevation. In fact, some lineages begin initiations for Nana Burukú with a large cleaning with meat at a spring; after the cleaning the meat is dumped in a hole in the Earth. I have heard some elder...

I woke this morning from an unusual dream: My Asojano was on the floor, seated in an ancestor altar with nine glasses of water and nine candles. So today I am reflecting on the link between Babalú-Ayé and the ancestors. One of the first things that Pedro Abreu—Asonyanye ever said to me was this: Asojano is a witch, Asojano is an ancestor, and Asojano is an oricha.   Unlike other orichas, Babalú-Ayé seems not only to be comfortable with his ancestral role, but to embrace it. In some stories he dies and is born again. In others, he visits the land of the dead and returns with important gifts. In fact, he is sometimes referred to simply as an ancient ancestor, thought to stand in for all those whose names are forgotten. His attributes also have a strong connection with the ancestors.   When Abreu makes a secret for Asojano, he includes many things—and as he is fond of reminding anyone who will listen, no two are ever the same—but he always includes the relic of a s...

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...

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...