Jack Bechtold

Altars of the Black Atlantic

9-22-17

Oṣun-Oṣogbo Festival and the Effect of Slavery on the Yoruba Religion

After watching Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler one can clearly see how the Oṣun-Oṣogbo Festival, and Orisha as a religion itself, is a product of cultural and religious mixing. The roots of Orisha seem to have stayed the same since the beginning, yet all other aspects such as their individual Gods and Goddesses seem to be in constant motion of what is right for the time and place.

The religious mixing was especially clear when reading Thompsons piece “The Concept Altar”. The essay showed how the Africans used their environment and the religions around them to reinforce their own beliefs. At one point in Thompsons book he talks about the fundamentals of the Afro-Atlantic altar – “the fundamentals of the Afro-Atlantic altar are additive, eclectic, non exclusive.”  (source).  This could not be more true. While slaves, Africans used statues of Christian saints as altars. They didn’t use just any random statue. Worshipers used statues of saints who showed the same strengths as the Orisha they worshiped.

The two American women’s journey to become priestess’s was a great demonstration of the religious mixing because even though they have been separated and forbidden from their religion for hundreds of years, their people managed to endure the prosecution of other religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by imbibing the differences and celebrating the similarities. A priest in the movie said something to the effect of ‘we are all worshiping the same one God we just have different ways of doing it’. The belief or idea that all of the monotheistic religions of the world are focused on one true god is thought provoking. The different Orisha are simply different characteristics of the one true God. You pray to the specific aspect of god that you need help from. Orisha seems like a very similar form of meditation or communication as Christians practice of speaking to God himself – prayer. Let us say you need help with conception, for example, in the Christian religion you would go to God, or specifically St. Gerard Majella. The same goes for Orisha. If you were having trouble with conception you would have an altar of the Orisha Oshun.

This is a product of the cultural mixing that has been going on since the beginning of time. The Oṣun-Oṣogbo Festival is a great example of the cultural mixing that was a byproduct of the slave trade because people travel from all over the globe to be part of the festival.  The only reason that the festival is as big on a global scale as it is is due to the Africans sold as slaves with those of other religious descent. Overall I am in awe at how historical events have caused such a dramatic change in a religion. I wish we could see what would have happened if there was no African Diaspora. Would Orisha still be one of the ten largest religions in the world? We may never know.