Yoruba Religion and Myth

The faiths of the Yoruba peoples of Western Nigeria vary significantly from one part of the region to another; the same deity may be male in one village and female in the next, or the characteristics of two gods may be embodied in a single deity in a neighboring region; in the city of Ile Ife alone the trickster god is worshipped under three different names. These variations inevitably arose as the myths were passed by word of mouth; add to them the incorporation into the Yoruba faith of facets of outside religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, and understanding the faith becomes difficult indeed. The religions, however, share a similar structure, described by E. Bolaji Idowu as "diffused monotheism"; a single omnipotent creator-god rules over the universe, along with several hundred lower gods, each with a specific domain of rule.



Sango, the god Wole Soyinka refers to in his poem "Hunt of the Stone", occupies a major position in the pantheon of the Yoruba, although he holds a less important position in neighboring ethnic groups. Sango (also spelled Sagoe) creates thunder and lightning by casting "thunderstones" down to earth; wherever lightning strikes, priests search the surrounding area for the thrown stone. The Yoruba believe these stones have special powers, and they enshrine the stones in temples to the god. Sango has four wives, each personified by a major Nigerian river; his chief wife, Oya, is represented by the River Niger. One myth about Sango tells of when he was human and ruled as the fourth king of the ancient Yoruba capital of Oyo. He had a charm that could cause lightning, with which he inadvertently killed his entire family. In remorse he hanged himself, and upon his death he became deified. Although the "foremost national deity", according to some, the Yoruba do not consider him the most powerful or even the most important god; rather, his popularity may have resulted from attempts to ward off the frequent tornadoes that strike western Africa.
Curiously, the Yoruba never actively worship their all-powerful god, variously known as Olorun ("the owner of the sky") or Olodumare (roughly translates as "the almighty"), among many other names. Unlike Sango, who has dozens of shrines erected to him, Olorun has not a single shrine; the Yoruba never make sacrifices to him, and he has no priests. He plays much the same role as do the Judeo-Christian and Islamic gods-- he is "the creator of all things, the almighty and all-knowing, the giver of life and breath, and the final judge of mankind", according to Geoffrey Parrinder-- and yet the Yoruba apparently ignore him in their day-to-day lives. A theory explains that perhaps Olorun developed through the influence of early Islamic or Christian missionaries, as a simulacrum of the gods of those religions. This finds support in the argument that the Yoruba find the concept of an almighty God so overwhelming and remote that they cannot relate Olorun to their reality.
Some Yoruba legends have a pair of gods, Orishanla (Obatala, Orisa-nla) and his wife Odudua, as supreme creating deities, either independent of almighty Olorun or preceding him. One legend has Olorun creating the world and then leaving Obatala and Odudua to finish up the details; other interpreters have considered Olorun and Obatala one and the same. Obatala, often a sculptor-god, has the responsibility to shape human bodies; the Yoruba consider the physically deformed either his votaries or the victims of his displeasure. Olorun, however, reserves the right to breathe these bodies to life. In some places, Obatala also rules over all of the orisha, or minor gods, as king, although still subordinate to Olorun. The orisha (of which Sango is one) traditionally number either four hundred one or six hundred one. The Yoruba explained to early missionaries that these minor gods descended from the single almighty god, just as Jesus was the son of the Christian god.