Everything about these references are accurate in their depiction of the relationship between Olodumare (which Christianity has muschievously appropriated to mean the patriarchal Christian God in contemporary popular imagination. Indeed Olodumare is the cognomen to apprehend the awesome nature of the divinity.
The sources underscore my position that there may not be one legendary founder by that name contrary to the popular imagination.
Thus to say we are children of Oduduwa may simply mean we are the descendants of common ancestral civilizational experience worshipping the same common awesome overarching divinity in relation to other deities in the pantheon(Olodumare).
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Date: 05/08/2017 13:50 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FALETI -LOSS OF A FATHER
On Oduduwa as Cosmogonic Identity in Yoruba Thought
'the Yoruba once regarded Oduduwa as the Supreme Goddess, an embodiment of Heaven and Earth. . According to J. Olumide Lucas, one of the pioneer scholars of Yoruba religion and himself a Yoruba elder:In the early myths she [Oduduwa] is credited with the priority of existence
... She is regarded as having independent existence, and as co-eval with Olorun [aka Olodumare], the Supreme Deity with whom she is associated in the work of creation ... Oduduwa is known as Iya Agbe--'Mother of the Gourd' or 'Mother of the closed calabash; She is [sometimes] represented in a sitting posture,nursing a child.
Hence prayers are often addressed to her by would-be mothers (Lucas 1948:45).D. Olarimiwa Epega, another Yoruba elder, makes a similar point: "Odudua is the Self-Existent Being who created existence. He is both male and female ...
The word Olodumare is a praise title of Odudua" (1971:13-14). (3) Other scholars have drawn attention to the appearance of the word odu (chief) in the names of Ol-odu-mare and Oduduwa, suggesting that both apparently refer to one and the same deity(Idowu 1994:22-7, 31-2; Bamgbose 1972/73:28-9). (4) Indeed, Olodumare is also known as Eleduwa, which recalls the duwa in Odu-duwa. Thus the narrative attributing the creation of the terrestrial world to Oduduwa may very well reflect a divine act of self-extension,identifying Olodumare as a sexually biune Supreme Deity. In other words, is Ile an alter ego of Olodumare?'
From Babatunde Lawal, "Ejiwapo: The Dialectics of Twoness in Yoruba Art and Culture".
On 5 August 2017 at 05:20, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
Beautiful ideas on the Esu/Orunmila conjunction, Olayinka.
I find particularly insightful the following summations:
"[Orunmila a] male priestly figure ...responsible for coherent Yoruba narratology and mathematical and numerological sophistication".
"Esu as... the author of ALL things dialogical... the basis of the dialogical matrix of the development of the Ifa corpus."
I wonder, though, if the effort to arrive at a female presence complementing that of Orunmila in Ifa might not be more readily carried out with reference to Odu, a wife of Orunmila, according to an ese ifa in which she bequeaths esoteric knowledge to him, odu also being the name of the organizational structures and active agents of Ifa, the 256 odu ifa.
I also wonder if it is not more realistic to approach Esu's bisexuality in terms of that entity's liminal nature, an integration of contraries as the nexus between various possibilities of being as messenger across realms of existence, in terms of carrying sacrifices from human beings to various spiritual entities, as opener of the paths to oracular knowledge, among other possibilities represented by this figure place at the literal, metaphorical and spiritual crossroads where various possibilities intersect.
It would enlightening, though, to follow, across time, how the Esu image was developed, but, I wonder to what degree a description of Esu as originating in a female deity is conjectural and to what degree it is based on evidence, particularly in relation to such a distant point in an oral society as you are trying to peer into.
Could etymological deductions alone be strong to enough to establish such a claim about such a strategic question in Orisa cosmology?
I have not come across a conflation of Esu and Ela before although their roles as hermeneutic agents, as Rowland Abiodun depicts Ela in Yoruba Art and Language : Seeking the African in African Art, are correlative. Could you suggest any sources for the description of both of them as identical, even if they are oral sources?
The highlighting of the female element in Ifa is vital, on account of its occlusion by the bulk of ese ifa I have come across, and along with the work of Margaret Thompson Drewal, as in Yoruba Ritual: Performers, Play, Agency and the recent efforts by Diaspora Olorisa to find a more active place for women in Ifa through reinterpretation of ese ifa and of Ifa in general, it would be wonderful to further highlight the centrality of female presence as complementary to the masculine in the Ifa matrix, a dialectic through which the divinatory process operates, which is the direction in which I see your work going.
On Oduduwa, Susanne Wenger, I think, in A Life with the Gods and certainly Awo Falokun in 'Obatala: Ifa and the Chief Spirit of the White Cloth', if I got correctly the name of that wonderful essay,seems to be projecting a view on that figure as going beyond his conventional perception as the founder of the Yoruba race in a manner similar to your view.
Falokun depicts Ododuwa in terms of a cosmogonic role also echoed by a powerful ese ifa featuring Iya Agba, the aged and venerable female, mother of the Orisa, who retires in old age to an abode under the earth, surrounded by four calabashes provided by each of her children, Oduduwa being one of them, calabashes containing primal substances representing mediation between Iya Agba's chtonic power and human beings, a story Judith Gleason beautifully analyses in A Recitation of Ifa Literary Corpus.
These substances are similar to or identical with those described as buried in the earth of the Ogboni iledi or shrine room to represent the interaction between the esoteric group and primal spiritual powers, as described in Dennis Williams' Icon and Image: A Study of Sacred and Secular Forms of African Classical Art, Ogboni's veneration of Ile, Earth, as mother of all being correlative with Iya Agba's location in the earth.
If I recall correctly, Oduduwa's gift to Iya Agba is mud, evoking the confluence of soil and water, suggesting humanity's terrestrial and aquatic dependencies as well as a liminality evoking the intersection of matter and spirit, this interpretation borrowing ideas on symbolism of mud in the culturally cognate Benin culture in Ndubuisi Ezeluomba's 'The Explanation of a Text With Reference to the Mud Sculptures of Benin'.
In all, there seems to be more to Oduduwa than the image of a national or racial leader in terms of which he is better known.
Thanks
toyin
On 3 August 2017 at 17:32, Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
The sculpted iconography of Esu-Elegbara presents us with a dual gendered deity.
This symbolises the Yoruba civilization in the two phases of becoming: the first agrarian phase in which indisputably following the same civilization pattern world wide Esu was the first Yoruba earth Goddess. That accounts for the mammary feature of this iconography.
As in other civilizational patterns the Yoruba having mastered cultivation symbolized by the metallurgical conquest of nature in the Ogun myth embarked on the creation of cities and the citi-states civilizations like the Greek city states ( See the concluding essay of Soyinkas Myth, Literature and the African World for more on this.)
This is where the Oduduwa myth comes in. The historical personage at the centre of this civilizational push is symbolically represented as the author but he may not actually have existed as one man but a composite of several men spanning several generations.
If the USAA-Dialogue series were only oral in orientation and is being examined 300 years later when writing suddenly comes it is possible all the materials generated be attributed to the moderator alone as if he dialogued with himself and by himself alone as in the Socratic dialogues.
Going back to my hypothesis in the preceding the second post agrarian city state/conquest phase is represented in the phallic symbol on the Esu statue. It reminds the viewer of the link between one phase and the other. It points to a strong male priestly figure (Orunmila) responsible for the interpretation of this Goddess will, responsible for coherent Yoruba narratology and mathematical and numerological sophistication which were put at the service of the early Yoruba ancestry (or conquering progenitor Oduduwa as depicted in Moremi) in developing a thriving city state civilization (and later an empire.)
As I pointed out in my prolegomenary essay to Moremi: The Courage of Motherhood dialectical etymology is the most reliable indicator of these vetities.
Orunmila was most probably an 'ara oke' or Ekiti word which indicates how far north Oduduwa came from. The idea of migration from Mecca is most likely an addition after the influence of Islam in the savannah area of Oyo kingdom.
An Ekiti pronounciation of Orunmila is Orun męla. We know that the other name for Esu in the divination lore is Ęla. It is not hard to see that Orunmela refers to the male priest who knows intimately the will of the female earth deity Esu/Ela (himself later deified and hence represented as indivisible from the Esu sculpture). Orunmela thus became Orunmila in Oyo dialect.
It is the twinning if both figures that represents Esu as the protector of twins and the author of ALL things dialogical as well as serves as the basis of the dialogical matrix of the development of the Ifa corpus.
The etymology of Oduduwa is also fruitful and revealing. It may have referred originally to the creative potency of the word in an oral society rather than one single personage. The 'uwa' part of the name is the 'ara oke' (northern Yoruba)manner of pronouncing what Oyo Yoruba calls Iwa. Oduduwa may in the final analysis may be referring to the creation lore and process that is responsible for the onset of Yoruba civilization.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>Date: 03/08/2017 05:56 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com >Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FALETI -LOSS OF A FATHER
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Superb.
May the aforementioned deities be with him.
On another note, I am struck by the reference to the two prominent Yoruba origin Orisa cosmology deities Orunmila and Esu in terms of the feminine gender, which is unusual.
Can you educate us?
toyin
On 3 August 2017 at 06:31, Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
--We have been engrossed on the university mentees debate for so long that another mentor story that is of immeasurable significance to me is being inadvertently buried under the deluge.
That is the passing away of my mentor and father in more senses that one: Pa Adebayo Faleti.
As a broadcaster it was Pa Faleti who opened the gates for me into the world of broadcasting. It was Pa Faleti who inaugurated me into the rituals of full grown adult independent men.
Pa Faleti it was who became my muse into translation studies as I indicated to faculty at the graduate school in the United States. He was the role model who graduated with a honors degree in English but chose to go into creative writing mostly in his native tongue: Yoruba.
He wrote plays for the stage such as the powerful drama Basorun Gaa which together with Akinwunmi Isolas Efunsetan Aniwura kept viewers glued to their television sets for decades.
Pa Faleti's penchant for defying the odds saw him functioning as both intellectual, member of the literati and civil servant simultaneously. Many times he would convert a foyer in Ile Akede to a theatre rehearsal stage making do not with a theatre dept students cast but home grown theatre practitioners. Ile-Akede was conveniently located at Orita Basorun (Basorun Crossroads) perhaps by the divine guidance of the Principality at the Crossroads. It was little wonder he grafuated into film making on early retirement.
Pa Faleti was also a renown novelist and poet.A translation of his work has been published by a forumite Pamela Olubunmi Smith
Pa Faleti was the guiding spirit behind the legions of radio and television jingles that raised self awareness in Oyo State.
Together with Bayo Sanda Pa Faleti was the soul of Yoruba broadcasting in all the Yoruba states.
I urge forumites to please join me in recognising the passing of a titan
May Èşù-Ęlęgbára receive this celebrant and Orunmila incarnate onto her fecund bosom.
Àşę
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
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