It’s hard to believe how much has
happened in the past 2 weeks or so as I’ve been really busy, but I think I’ve
managed to learn a lot and develop my plans for my time here. Most of my time
was taken up by what’s called the Ipedi group of festivals, which is a period
of just under a week that marks the beginning of the traditional year and
contains festivals and/or rituals for Ogun (the deity of iron, war, and
farming), Ifa (wisdom and divination), Egungun (ancestoral masquerades),
Oranmiyan (an ancestral deity of war), the Timi (Sacred king), and also some
rituals for the deceased Timi. During that time period, I’ve mostly been running
around taking some pictures and videos of these festivals, and doing some
interviews with the important specialists who are involved in them. I did one
set before the festivals so I’d know what to look for an expect, and I’m just
now getting started on another set to try to make sense out of what I saw,
understand their significance, function, and role in Ede’s religious life.
It was surprisingly hard trying to
pin down exactly when and where I should be for each of these festivals. Before
coming to Nigeria, I went to a fair amount of trouble to get a book written in
the late 50s about Ede’s festivals, so I had a very good idea of what festivals
were supposed to be held, approximately when, and what was supposed to happen,
but I have since learned that a decent amount has changed since the 50s, and
when I would ask people about certain details, I would often get completely
conflicting answers. The best example is the Egungun festival (which is a
smaller, less significant one than the main one that usually happens in June).
I asked some well-connected people in the palace when the Egungun ceremonies
would take place, and while they told me that it would be sometime the
following week, a young babalawo (Ifa priest) told me a few days later that it
was actually going to start that day! He gave me a location and time, and I
managed to get there without missing anything, but I’m glad somebody (maybe
Ifa?) had my back on that one! Funnily enough, the Araba told me a few days ago
on ose Ifa (the sacred day of Ifa in the traditional Yoruba week when Ifa
priests consult the deity) that it predicted success for my research in Ede, so
I guess I just need to hold up my end of the bargain.
My dissertation will have a more
full account of the different festivals, but I can give a short description of
them here too. The first one is Ogun’s festival, also called the new yam
(harvest) festival because Ogun is the deity of farming and agriculture, and
the yam is one of his sacred foods as the strong primary staple crop in Yorubaland.
It’s not uncommon for Ogun’s festival to also be the new yam festival for that
reason, but I think it is particularly important in Ede because the town was
originally founded as a base for warriors protecting the border and trade
routes of the Oyo Empire and Ogun was the patron deity of the first Timi and
many more after him. The main part of this festival (which is quite popular and
attended by much more than just the hunters and Ogun worshippers) is the
sacrifice of a dog at the Ogun shrine in the market right by the palace. The
actual sacrifice is can be a bit harrowing if you love dogs and aren’t used to
animal sacrifice, just to give you a heads up. After giving Ogun the required
sacrificial materials, two Ogun devotees stretch the dog and suspend it in the
air by pulling on ropes attached to its neck and hind legs. While it is
suspended above the shrine, another hunter takes out a cutlass and has to cut
through the neck of the dog with a single stroke. If not, it is a bad sign that
Ogun is not pleased and has not accepted the sacrifice, although nobody
remembers this ever happening because they take great precautions to ensure
that it is performed successfully. I find it interesting that since it is, at
least in theory, completely possible and fairly easy, to use just one stroke,
any failure there would indicate some lack of maintenance for the cutlass, lack
of care or attention in performing the ritual, or something else like that,
which I could imagine would definitely not please Ogun (who has a notoriously
short temper).
The following day has festivals for
Oranmiyan, the past Timi or kings of Ede, and Ifa at night. I was not allowed
to see the Oranmiyan festival because it is only the senior chiefs who can
witness it, and they only bring out the Opa Oranmiyan (Oranmiyan’s staff/the
Ede war standard) once a year to offer sacrifices to it. The most interesting
part of this particular ritual to me is that the Balogun (senior war chief) is
a Muslim, and he is the one charged with performing these rituals. Later that
afternoon they began sacrifices to deceased Timi, but I had bad information
about this one, and the king actually called me and Wale to let us know that
they were going to start it! We rushed over there, and it was pretty
fascinating to see it. In essence there were three sets of rituals that were
largely the same. They would go to a group of graves and leave various
offerings there, say several prayers asking for blessing and protection for the
town, and then they would do a form of divination much like the kind commonly
done with kola nuts to determine if the ancestors were happy, accept the
offerings, and give their blessing. Fortunately (although from what I gather
this happens practically every year), the configuration of the yams and kola
nuts used in divination was always the same at each one of the dozen or so
graves and indicated a success.
The Ifa festival was unsurprisingly
my favorite and the most fascinating as the rituals are a bit deeper and more
complex. All of the Ifa devotees come to the palace that night at about 11pm
and they recite Ifa verses from the major parts of the Ifa oral corpus (these
are a bit like poems and myths used in the practice of divination) until about
5am! After they finish reciting one of the Odu (chapters from the Ifa corpus),
the senior Ifa priets, the Timi, and the senior chiefs all get up, dance out to
an ancient iron lamp with 16 flames on it, dance around it counterclockwise 3
times, and then come back to their seats for the recitation of verses from the
next odu. The following morning (most people don’t even sleep in between) the
Ifa priests move in a procession around town to greet the most important chiefs
and get some gifts, food, and schnapps from them.
The next day after that was
possibly the biggest celebration in town (maybe excepting what’s called Ileya
here or ‘Eid al-Adha/Kabir, but more on that later), and it is the one called
Ipedi, or the king’s festival. Dancers and drummers come to the palace early in
the morning and start singing praise songs for the Timi until he and his chiefs
come out to walk in procession around town. Previously, Ede had big city walls
like most Yoruba cities, but as the town grew bigger and there was no need for
them anymore, they have long since disappeared. However, the Timi still goes to
the four gates that used to be the entrances to the town, sits on his throne
and receives well-wishers. Along the way on the road, the major religious
figures come and pray for him and the town, and the Timi gives them some money.
Everyone else comes out to greet the Timi, and heads of major lineages or
organizations come and give him gifts and/or money. It was complete mayhem, and
everyone was in the street. It must
have taken 5+ hours to complete everything because the Timi would stop every
time a group of people wanted to greet him. There were lots of drummers,
dancers, religious groups, and even one guy dressed up like Timi Agbale Olofa
Ina (the Oyo general who became the first king of Ede) with a flaming arrow set
in his bow and everything!
Two days later, the ancestral
masquerades known as Egungun start to come out. There are three that appear at
this time, but they don’t all come out at once. The masquerades are quite
large, and have a person inside them who dances around, and the outside is
usually decorated in lots of different colorful fabric with some kind of wood
carving for the head, often times with some kinds of symbols that represent
death. It is a taboo to touch the Egungun, so although there is always a big crowd
around them (I noticed it was mostly small children), only a few designated
people are ever very close to them. They are always surrounded by drummers, and
while they are dancing, every once in a while they whirl around and run in a
certain direction, scattering all of the people in front of them. Each Egungun
would come out of the house that owns it, dance around, collect money and offer
prayers for people, go to bars and get free booze, and go to the palace to
dance around. They would come out at about 4pm, and wouldn’t go back in until
pretty late at night. One group of people who seem to really love this
tradition now is young guys about my age. I noticed a lot of them smoking, and
taking advantage of the free alcohol that the masquerades get. Apart from the
smell of pot and several drunk people wandering the streets, the masquerades
themselves are really fascinating to watch, and I think an in-depth study of
their paraphernalia and its symbolism would be very interesting, but that’s not
why I’m here…
Apart from the festivals, one of
the most interesting things that has happened, happened almost by accident.
While conducting an interview the Akoda, he told me several stories from Ifa
that are clear adaptations from the Bible and the Qur’an. One was about Ibrahim
and ‘Eid al-Kabir, or Ileya in Yoruba, another was about the Prophet Muhammed,
and then there was another about Jesus! I had heard a few stories about Ileya
from Ifa, and a few others referencing the Prophet Muhammad before, but Ifa has
traditionally not interacted too much with Christianity, and this was the first
time I had ever heard of something like this. The Jesus story, of course, had a
distinctly Yoruba flavor, and in the end Jesus was betrayed and killed because
his parents failed to make a sacrifice for him when Orunmila saved his life and
predicted what a great man he would become. Since I love Ifa stories so much,
and this type in particular, when I have some time, I will have to ask the
Akoda if he knows more that address Islam and Christianity. I’m also interested
to hear what some of the pastors and imams have to say about Ifa’s take on
their traditions.
In other news, I’m getting my life
set up here on campus. The university is quite large even by Nigerian standards
(where universities can be almost small mini-states in their own right). It’s
pretty amazing that the whole place was built by a church, the Redeemed
Christian Church of God, and they make their own water, bread, have a waste
management service, security force, etc. There’s also a really nice Ijebu lady (the
same sub-ethnic group that our family comes from) who has a general store on
campus. She’s been teaching me a little bit of Ijebu when I stop by to buy
credit for my phone and give the kids she watches some fruit or candy. It took
a while to set up a bank account because security has become even more of an
issue with all of the fraud going on, and I learned that the exchange rate has
now gone up to 370 Naira to 1 Dollar. It makes me wonder how much longer this
can continue… The Araba told me that it’s bad in Modakeke too, and that people
don’t have money to pay him even when he’s done work for them, and he might
even not hold his Ifa festival in September because money is so tight
everywhere. Since the festivals are done for several weeks now, I should have a
chance to go see him relatively soon, and I’m going to get started with more
interviews, so I will keep you updated on hot that goes!
