Baba Who? Babalú!

+ 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 important?

 + 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 of sores offered ba

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 in order to be

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