What is Orisha Oro? (The dreadful Deity that Forsake Women)

This write up  was written by Nana DE Oxum from Havana Cuba , an ifa apprentice under tutelage of babalawo Obanifa Ile Ife osun state Nigeria.I remember vividly when I ask baba Obanifa 'baba what do you have to share with me on Orisa Oro'?  He just said, ' Oro is a male cult before people turn it to a diety. I think  what you just is need to know about Oro as a female  ifa apprentice is that Oro is a male diety that Ifa can in some cases during ifa divination reading choses as adimu for a client to Propitiate, Oro  be a male diety have power of punishing the wicked, criminals and witches,it also have power to exonerate the innocent. It has power to prevent the evil witch from carry out their evil intentions. It can provide children for barren women. And what you can ask ifa to feed orisa oro with ranging from akara(beans cake), Isu sise(boil yam) emu(palm wine) ewa (cooked beans) akukodiye (cock) elede (pig) ewe ekoya(it is
a  a variety of yoruba leaves, he didn't give me botanical name for this leaves as he normally do,I notice from his intonation he didn't want to divulge much that day on the topic under discussion)'.I  now said Baba Obanifa is this all you think I need to know about Orisa Oro? His further reply is  intimidating, he said 'bi obinrin ba for kan oro, oro agbe (that is if a woman witness Oro the woman will be killed'. I was discouraged. What is wrong in be a women and Oro. He just told me  he has given enough information on Oro to be useful for me in my field as ifa preistess. He is very nice man  open minded and intelligent and alway ready to share knowledge, I respect him a lot, but on this topic of Oro he was a bit different with me. He said it is not  a thing women need to know details about, like any other part of my training. On my own personal conversation with others and information I get on orisa image about Oro, I discover while baba Obanifa give little info he thinks will help in practice. But later  when I apologize to him for asking him to much questions on Oro,that I have known it is a male cult. After then he give me elaborate lecture on Orisa Oro. So in  this write up, I will like to share what I gain from him and on orisha image.
According to orisha image wish give comprehensive explanation on Oro.
Orisha Orò is a male entity whose cult is closely connected with the political council known as Ògbóni or Òṣùgbó. Orò acts under its command and carries out their sentences. The cult is very secretive and excludes women completely. The sound of the sacred bull-roarer, a sound-producing instrument, accompanies the public appearance of the Orò masqueraders in Yoruba towns. In these nights women must hide in the houses, because they – and even men not being members of the cult – run the risk of being killed if they happen to see the procession or the rites. Orò cult survived the middle-passage and the Orisha is still worshiped in Cuba, although not known to a broad audience.

The bull-roarer

Bull-roarer  are simple musical or sounding instruments and are used around the world in different cultures. Most likely you could have seen them in a documentary about Australian Aborigines. It is usually a thin slat carved out of wood, attached to a long cord. This cord can be fixed to a flexible pole around two meters long. The pole is rotated and the wooden spatulate can be whirled with a big momentum. The slat is swung in a circle above the head and at the same time spins around its axis, till the cord winds fully, in one direction. The vibrating sound produced by the slat moving through the air can be modulated by the length of the rope and the way it is swung. Especially large bullroarers (up to 50 cm or 20“ long) produce a low-frequency tone that can be heard over long distances.
The Yoruba call the bullroarers.iṣẹ́ Orò. It is usually around thirty to fifty centimeters (twelve to twenty inches) long, made of camwood or bamboo and can be decorated with figurative carvings. Once consegrated it is an absolute taboo for women to see this phallic representation of the Orisha. In addition every initiate receives a smaller version of a bullroarer, this oneis called ajá Orò, literally Orò’s dog. Onthe one hand the metaphor of barking through the sounding of an instrument announces the coming of the Orisha and on the other hand vice-versa also invokes the Orisha’s attention, like a dog might do. In addition, because of its smaller size, the ajá Orò produces a higher frequency tone mimicking also the voice of a smaller animal rather than the low frequency tones of the larger iṣẹ́ Orò bullroarers.Iṣẹ́ Orò are usually reserved for the elderly members or are kept in the shrine in the igbo oro ojubo Orò, the sacred forest of the Orò society out of town, where only initiated men are allowed to enter.

Orò in Nigeria

In precolonial times the Orò cult performed legislative, executive and judicial functions in the Yoruba society. The origin of Orò can be found in the Ẹ̀gbá subgroup around the town of Abẹ́òkúta, from where it diffused among the Yoruba subgroups of the Ìjẹ̀bu, Ẹ̀gbádò and Àwórì. The cult started to decline when the British established their protectorate in Nigeria at the end of the 19th century and the traditional rulers lost their political influence. Orò executed criminals, could exile persons out of town (or sold them into slavery) and cleansed the community of witchcraft. Orò is a kind of male counterpart to the Iyáàmi, the female witches, and their senior lady Ontótóo.
Orò is a Yoruba ancestor cult, like the better known egúngún cult, they can be called "twin brothers". Both manifest themselves in annual masquerader festivals. The devotees of Orò direct their attentions to a collective of ancestors rather than to personal ones. Spirits of the dead play an active role in the daily life of the living, they are sought of for protection,guidance and are being consulted via means of divination. Orisha Orò commands the spirits of the executed criminals and those who have spilled human blood upon the earth, what onlythe most powerful players could do in the past, theỌba(kings),Ògbóni members and Ifa diviners. With his power Orò lets those deceased ancestors intercede in present day human affairs to establish social orderin the community. At the burial of deceased Orò members,ìsìnkú, Orò rituals will be performed as a rite of passage. Necromancing, ìpàdẹ, allows to consult the soul of the deceased members to clarify contending issues. In the Oròópagi ceremony (literally killing or eating of a tree) the clothes of a deceased person appear hanging on a tree, that is stripped completely of its leaves by magic incantations. Especially important is this for the Ọba, the king. When installed on the throne the king becomes èkejí Òrìṣà, a partly de-individualized demigod for the rest of his earthly lifetime. After his death his individual soul has to go through a set of ceremonies to get relieved from the immortal existence of the Ọba.This is directed by the Orò cult-members.

Although Orò lost his official political power the Orisha is still worshiped upto today in Yoruba towns to ensure peace and to ward off evil in the community. The annual festival, Oròdóko, when Orò comes out of the sacred forest, is usually held at the end of the yam harvest season around August and lasts for several days. In modern towns this can cause conflicts on various levels. Yoruba belief demands women and children staying at home during these days, as they must never see the Orò procession moving through town. If they did, they would get killed by Orò, as it is an absolute taboo for women to see the virile entity of Orò. According to Adunni Olorisa even to encounter an Orò possession, or wander into the Orò groves, would be catastrophic to the traditionally attuned woman. The woman who enters there on purpose or even by accident will be barren for the rest of her life or give birth to a monster, begotten by one of Orò's slaves,ẹrú, the criminals executed by him also called páakọ̀kọ̀ .During festival time he takes over the land outside, "Orò gb’ode", and takes with him all those criminals and offenders who have to be punished. In the past beheaded corpses could be found after Orò was out in town, or people just disappeared and never have been seen again, with their clothes hanging in trees. Orò took them away.
The sound of the bull roarer announces the coming of Orò’s terrifying activities and men on the streets are shouting "Páakọ̀kọ̀, páakọ̀kọ̀!", calling the spirits of executed criminals that are always accompanying the Orisha. During festival time public life and business in the streets can get interrupted severely.Modern lifestyle, Christianity, Islam and traditional belief get into conflict. Ethnic diversity in modern towns is also part of today’s struggle with the cult of Orò. In 1999 around 60 people got killed in ethnic conflicts at Sagamu,a small town northeast of Lagos. A Hausa woman was out on the streets at night during Orò procession and died, what led to more violent outbursts between the Yoruba and the Hausa people.