296
and place her son on the throne.”
Eshu warned the king, “You had
better take care and keep vigil.”
That night, as the king
pretended to sleep, his aggrieved
wife stole into his chamber with
a knife, intent on cutting a few
whiskers from his beard so as toESHU THE TRICKSTER
did everything together: when they
planted yams in the field, they did
so side by side; they wore the same
dresses; they had even taken a pair
of brothers as their husbands.
The women promised each
other that they would remain
friends for the rest of their days.
To secure this pact, they visited a
Babalawo (diviner), who cast his
sacred palm nuts and discerned
that to have their friendship
blessed, they needed to offer a
sacrifice to Eshu. However, they
neglected to carry out these
instructions and Eshu, in turn,
decided to teach them a lesson.The hat trick
One day the two friends were
working in the fields, singing
together as they worked the soil
with their hoes. Eshu appeared
wearing a flamboyant hat, one half
red and the other half white, and as
he walked between the two
women, they both greeted him.
After he had gone on his way, one
of the women turned to the other
and commented on his appearance.
“What a wonderful red hat he was
wearing!” she exclaimed. “Are
you blind?” asked her companion.
“Surely you saw that the hat was
white!” When Eshu returned later
that day, he passed between
the women again as they rested
on their hoes. This time, he rubbed
their tired backs.
“I am so sorry,” said one woman
to the other, “you were indeed right
and his hat was red.” “Are you
mocking me?” replied her friend.
“I could see it was clearly white!”
Offended by each other’shave the wizard make the charm.
Thinking that she wished to kill
him, the king jumped up and pried
the knife from her hand. The
commotion alerted the king’s son,
who was outside with his warriors,
and they now rushed into the
bedroom. Seeing his distraught
mother and the king with a knife in
his hand, he thought that his father
wished to harm his mother.
Meanwhile, the king, seeing the
warriors, assumed that his son had
come to seize power. A massacre
ensued, in which the king and his
family all lost their lives.The two friends
While Eshu punished those who
did not know their place, he also
rewarded those who behaved well.
There were once two young women
who were the best of friends. TheyEshu turns right into wrong,
and wrong into right.
Yorùbá Poetry
Bakare Gbadamosi
and Ulli Beier, 1979.This ca. 1900 Nigerian Adjella-Ifa
depicts a woman, with a baby on her
back, carrying a divination bowl topped
with a hen. A Babalawo will cast nuts
into the bowl for divine insight.US_294-297_Eshu-the-Trickster.indd 296 21/12/2017 12:06
297
contrariness, the two friends came
to blows, but rather than jeopardize
their friendship, they decided to
follow the Babalawo’s advice. They
prepared a sacrifice to Eshu, who
accepted their offering and blessed
their relationship so that they
remained the best of friends to the
end of their lives.Eshu and divination
While Eshu is a figure of both
chaos and order, this is not his only
role in the Ifá religion. He is also a
messenger, a being of multiple
faces and personas who links
everyday people with Olodumare,
Ifá’s supreme god. The Yorùbá
believe that Eshu plays an important
and dual role in divination; first,
the spirit constantly monitors the
transaction between the human
world and the divine. Then, when
a human makes a sacrifice, Eshu
acts as an active conduit for divine
energy—he lends the diviner ashe
(power) and transports this power
to the gods. In return, he brings
divine gifts, such as knowledge or
healing, back to the human world.
Duality plays an important role
in Yorùbá mythology, not just in
the dual nature of Eshu, but in theconcepts of ori and ese, meaning
“head” and “legs,” respectively. Ori
is essentially a person’s potential
and destiny, while ese is their hard
work. The Yorùbá believe that both
are necessary to succeed in life—
one cannot be effective withoutANCIENT EGYPT AND AFRICA
the other. A Yorùbá divination
poem gives this warning: “All
ori gathered to deliberate but
they did not invite ese. Eshu
said, ‘You do not invite ese;
we will see if you are able to
ach ieve s ucce s s.’” ■Gods of the Yorùbá
Yorùbá cosmology does not take
a single coherent form. This is
largely due to the fact that many
ethnic groups were, over the
years, absorbed and assimilated
into the community that we now
know as the “Yorùbá.” The
diverse groups brought their
own religious knowledge and
insights, and these were often
incorporated into the evolving
Yorùbá religious system.
As in many African religions,
the Yorùbá believe in a high god,
called Olodumare. AlthoughOlodumare is the creator and
supreme being, it (the Yorùbá do
not assign a gender to the deity)
is remote from the people.
The Yorùbá have not erected
any monuments to Olodumare,
instead interacting with and
appealing to minor spirits, the
orisha, who control various
aspects of everyday life. The
orisha are either associated with
the color white (for calm and
gentle spirits) or black and red,
denoting a more aggressive or
mercurial nature. Eshu is
traditionally depicted in a black
and red hat.The orisha Yemoja is the mother of
all other orisha and the goddess of
the ocean and water. Accordingly,
she is typically depicted in blue.Eshu’s hat of many colors
featured in more than one myth.
He wore it to best King Metolonfin,
who boasted that his amazing
four-eyed goat (actually the sun)
allowed him to be all-seeing.Eshu wore a hat with
a different color on each
side facing north, south,
east, and west.Others saw
different colors,
depending on where they
stood when they saw the
attack.Eshu assaulted
the king’s wife in
daylight in front of
witnesses.The goat said that
the culprit was wearing
a red hat.Eshu got
away with murder
because nobody could
agree on what
they saw.US_294-297_Eshu-the-Trickster.indd 297 05/12/17 4:16 pm