• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1105 0

traditions, the supreme creator may withdraw, but there is still a pantheon of more active and available gods who can be called upon through prayer, sacrifice, or the offering of gifts to gain favors. One of the best examples of this pantheon is the 1,700 divinities—known as orishas—of modern Nigeria’s Yoruba, who are part of one of the world’s oldest practiced religions, sometimes called Orisha after its gods. Orisha is headed by the supreme god, Olorun (or Olodumare), who couples with Olokun, goddess of the sea, and has two sons, Obatala and Oduduwa. Olorun sends his sons, along with a great palm tree, to create the world, but one of them makes wine from the palm sap, gets drunk, and falls asleep. (The biblical Noah, first man after the Flood, did exactly the same thing.) The other son, Oduduwa, creates earth and separates the land from the seas by having his hen scratch the ground. Oduduwa calls the place he creates Ile-Ife (“wide house”). In time it becomes a great city of the Yoruba, and it is still a major university center in modern Nigeria.*

Also in the Yoruban pantheon is the god of storms and thunder, Shango. According to legend, Shango is a ruler on earth who flees to the forest to escape his enemies but winds up committing suicide and then later being deified. Shango and another orisha, the trickster Eshu, are among the most important gods carried to the Americas by Africans taken as slaves, and are prominent in the African-based fusion religions, such as Santeria, which emerged in the Caribbean, and the voodoo of Brazil, Haiti, and Cuba.

A Guardian Spirit. Many Africans—like the Chinese and other ancestor-worshipping cultures—believe that the souls of their deceased forebears serve as guardians and sources of wisdom for the living. Some believe that ancestors are reborn in living things or in objects. The Zulus, for example, traditionally refuse to kill certain kinds of snakes, because they believe the souls of their ancestors live in these reptiles. In the modern Kwanzaa celebration, ancestor worship plays a part in a ritual that includes pouring a glass of clear water and lighting a candle while praying to the departed ancestor for help and guidance.

The Trickster. One of the most widespread and popular African mythic characters, the trickster often appears in many stories as an animal. The clever, clownish trickster is both a troublemaking hero and a schemer who shows little concern for the consequences of his mischief and fantastic adventures. A typical trickster in African traditions is Turé, the spiderman of the Pygmies, whose loincloth catches on fire from a spark at a blacksmith’s shop. Madly dashing through the forest, Turé asks the fire to enter the trees. This explains how humans got fire and why rubbing wooden sticks together produces it. Another famed animal trickster is Anansi the Spider, who was once a Creator god but who now lives by his wits, fooling other animals and mankind. And then there is Hare, whose ability to outwit other animals—and humans—made him the model for Br’er Rabbit, the mischievous rabbit who constantly outwits Br’er Bear and Br’er Fox in the stories told by plantation slaves in the American South and recorded by Joel Chandler Harris in his Uncle Remus stories (see below).

Eshu, another important African trickster, is not an animal but a god—like the Norse Loki, in many respects—who brings chaos. In one story, Eshu steals vegetables from the Creator god and covers up his theft by making footprints in the garden with the god’s own sandals. When the Creator realizes what has happened, he is so angry that he withdraws from earth.

Explanations for Death. In many African traditions, a “mixed message” brings death into the world, usually when an animal courier fails to deliver some important information from the gods to mankind. This is the case in the story of a bird sent by the Creator to tell people that when they get old they should just peel off their skins. On the way to deliver this message, the bird sees a snake eating a dead animal. In return for some of the