Baba Who? Babalú!

The Cabildo Arará Sabalú Nonjó played a key role in sustaining Arará traditions in Santería. Unlike most Santería traditions that have their roots in Yoruba culture in Nigeria, Arará traditions have their origins primarily in Fon speaking communities in what is now Benin. In fact, Sabalú comes from the Savalu in the Mahin area of central Benin. It is not entirely clear when the cabildo was established. Careful calculation by David H. Brown suggests sometime between 1880 and 1895 ( Santería Enthroned , p.74), but current cabildo leader Oscarito Rodríguez claims it was founded in 1862. Located in Matanzas City where many outlying communities also have Arará cabildos, the Sabalú cabildo—also known as the Cabildo del Santo Espíritu—forged a strong sense of identity and commitment to the knowledge of the oricha Asojano, Arará language, and Arará drumming. The cabildo continues to honor an enormously diverse set of fodunces , oricha-like deities with different names and some variable char

After Lázaro received Babalú-Ayé Lucumí and was warned about the end of his marriage, he took Babá home and installed him in the oricha room. And there he sat. Like many people, Lázaro was frightened by his powerful new roommate. Lázaro honored Babá every morning in his mojuba and wore his cachá from time to time, but for months he did not have the courage to approach Babá directly. As domestic life became tenser and new challenges presented themselves, Lázaro finally turned to Babalú. One night he turned out the lights, lit candles and pressed his head to the floor before the shrine. He poured out his frustration and confusion. He explained that he loved more than one person. He cried that he was not ready to be a father, especially not with his wife. He cleaned himself with the já , prayed for clarity, and went to bed. Just after midnight, Lázaro woke up vomiting. He vomited twelve times in the next ten hours, and before it was all over he was hunched over the toilet heavin

When Lázaro de la Caridad Zulueta Soa traveled to a distant city to receive Babalú-Ayé Lucumí, his new wife did not want to be excluded. Nor did she want to be implicated in the ceremony. So she timed her flight to arrive just after the awán, when there would be little danger of the oricha still mounting her husband or his ritual family. On the day of the itá, Lázaro had a terrible stomach—he was anxious to learn what Babalú had in store for him. Again his wife did not want to be left out or too involved. Thinking (naïvely) that a little distance would keep her out of harm’s way, she sat in the next room and read a bestselling novel, as the diviner read the shells: Afrá said that everything sweet turns sour, and Babalú-Ayé said that marriage is a palace with two doors, the true one and the false one. But Lázaro’s wife did not get to hear those messages. In a little more than a year, the bitterness of a false marriage had become intolerable: Lázaro, Afrá, and Babalú-Ayé moved out.

In Oché-Osá, the elders tell this story that introduces yet another little-known companion of Babalú-Ayé. Once, in the land called Osun Irawo, there lived a powerful royal couple named Oduaremu and Ekubijegan. These two indicated to the citizens of that land how to adore the ancestors. They had a child who was born deformed and with rickets, and so they named him Ason, meaning “sickness.” Ason was always wandering through his parents’ kingdom, but no one wanted to recognize him. But one day he happened upon Death who said, “Since no one understands you, why don’t you ally yourself with me and then you will be great in my kingdom? So Ason dressed in Death’s clothes, and with his black suit he visited Death’s kingdom, where he received honors, including the title “Keleyewe Kuto,” a secretive man recognized in the land of the dead. When Ason returned to his parents’ kingdom, it was racked with calamities, and Death began to dominate its residents. Oduaremu and Ekubijegan visited the k

My last post has me ruminating on the ubiquitous presence of rare orichas. I have no idea if anyone has actually ever consecrated Ajuangan , but it is an interesting idea. The odu Osá-Ogbe offers a similarly intriguing possibility: one tratado says that here Asojano prepared his “pot of witchcraft,” which he called Ibako. After wrapping it in black and white cloth, he fed it some nasty stuff. Another tratado calls Ibako the “witch” of Oluó Popó; Ibako is supposed to live in the forest, buried at the foot of an Araba tree. Like Asojano, Ibako is an ambiguous mixture of elements: he takes an ancestral relic but he also takes stones. Like Ajuangan, he is explicitly referred to as an oricha. To consecrate him, you must sing many songs for Osain and Asojano. I know Pedro Abreu—Asonyanye has given Ibako to his godchildren at times, though I don’t really know how he decides who should have Ibako and who should not. Abreu calls Ibako “the prenda of Asojano.”

My wife received Babalú-Ayé a few years back, and she is devoted to him, truly loves him. So, last week I asked her what she wanted to know about Babá. She reflected for a moment and said in her inimitable way, "I want to know where his compassion comes from." I don't know of any patakí that explains that, but I once had a dream which may speak to this question. In the dream, Babalú-Ayé and I stood together in a dark space. In the darkness, I heard his rough voice say, "I can feel all the pain in the world." Maybe the Lucumí elders learned their laconic style from the orichas themselves. Here Babá seems to say it all in a single sentence: He feels my pain. He feels your pain. He feels every one's pain. This is a very different take on what it means to be the Lord of the World. I believe it is his own suffering that leads to his compassion. Because he knows all the suffering in the world, he does not shy away from suffering in us. Because he knows that ev

There is an interesting story in the odu Irete-Oyekun that speaks of powers buried in the Earth. The King of Hebieque was called Disu, and he had a twin brother, Ajuangan, who was a sorcerer, a witch, and just terrible. He fed himself and his shrine objects with human blood. When the King found out about his twin brother’s evil deeds, he made a great hole in the Earth and placed Ajuangan there with every kind of food imaginable. He closed the hole and in that way consecrated Ajuangan as a fodún (oricha) so that he could do no more harm. When the King thought his brother had regenerated himself, he stood before the hole and said: Vitse dokpo meyi Ajuangan kuko No one can cut Ajuangan, I defend him. The next morning, Ajuangan turned back into a man and more of a sorcerer than ever before, and he named himself Akpodjivodu-Kombo-Kumku-Mabo (meaning, “He who has no friends”). He continued to kill people, and so they made a great hole in the Earth, filled it with dry wood to make a