Esu is your God?

[Biko Agozino]

Professor Falola just said something that I have been puzzling over. He said that he has adopted Esu as his God. That sounds odd because a God is not for adoption like children. But even before he said this, I have been questioning the assumption by colonial anthropologists that Africans are polytheistic and Europeans are monotheistic. 

Soyinka vigorously rejected the idea that he paints a picture of Yoruba Gods that are identical with Greek Gods. Soyinka said that in African belief systems, reprobate Gods are held accountable if they misbehave like the Greek Gods that go about raping the wives of one another and still being followed by their minions who are punished with plagues while they remain untouchable with impunity. Yet even Baba Soyinka still talks about Yoruba pantheistic pantheons.

The Nobel Prize committee probably did not get the memo and so repeated the mantra that Soyinka has his roots in Yoruba culture which has links with the Mediterranean, as if he is rooted in one spot like a tree (the Yoruba believe that they descended from ancient Egyptians but I think that it is the other way round). Soyinka denied this by stating in his Nobel lecture that his roots go all the way to Kenya in opposition to the torture of Mau Mau suspects, to South Africa in opposition to apartheid, and so on.

My question is this: Is an Orisa also an Oluwa in Yoruba belief system? Among the Igbo brothers and sisters (or ancestors, Obatala being a son of Igbo) of the Yoruba, they are called Arusi, spirit, but never Chukwu or Chineke, God. In Christianity, they may be called angels and saints, but never God. Is Esu also Oluwa, Olorun, or God or only Olisa, Arusi, Spirit. or Angel?

The reason why I ask this question is that there is a consensus that, just as human life originated in Africa, the belief in one God also originated in Africa (see Freud on Moses and Monotheism). The ancient Egyptians were said to have started it by observing that the sun that shines for us also shines for our enemies and so if you pray that the sun should stop shining for your enemies, you are praying for the sun to stop shining for you. Therefore, love your enemies as yourself because there is a good reason why good things (like sunshine) happen to bad people.

Moses and Monotheism | Sigmund Freud | download Moses and Monotheism | Sigmund Freud | download | B–OK. Download books for free. Find books

So, na Esu be your God?

Biko

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Edited

Esu, according to Dos Santos, as referenced by Ogundipe on Esu and as stated by Falola in Esu, God of Imaginative Frontiers, may be understood as embodying those qualities of ultimate possibility-a way of describing Olodumare- that constitute human individuality and creativity in its grounding in the enablement of that individuality and creativity by that ultimate power through ase, creative, cosmic force that pervades all existence and enables individual creativity.

Dos Santos states of Esu that everyone has their own Esu, and without that Esu, the person would not even know they exist.

Bolaji Idowu's Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, describes Esu as the privileged embodiment of ase, creative, cosmic force emanating from Olodumare and as messenger between deities and humans.

Falola describes Esu in his edited book book as both ubiquitous and individualized, such that Esu is not only everywhere but his altar may also be  in one's heart.

Henry Luis Gates Jr superbly analyses Esu's role as guide to understanding the oracular mysteries of Ifa in his The Signifying Monkey.

A  classic ese ifa, Ifa literary piece, on Esu is magnificent in evoking the paradoxes represented by the intersector of dimensions, connector between possibilities of being, messenger between forms of existence, trickster and yet embodiment of the dynamism  and unpredictability  of cosmic force, ase, the one known as Esu-

Eshu, God of Change-My own title and paragraphing but with link to text source

Eshu turns right into wrong, wrong into right.
When he is angry, he hits a stone until it bleeds.
When he is angry, he sits on the skin of an ant.
When he is angry, he weeps tears of blood.

Eshu slept in the house -
But the house was too small for him:
Eshu slept on the verandah -
But the verandah was too small for him:
Eshu slept in a nut -
At last he could stretch himself!

Eshu walked through the groundnut farm.
The tuft of his hair was just visible:
If it had not been for his huge size,
He would not be visible at all.

Lying down, his head hits the roof:
Standing up, he cannot look into the cooking pot.

He throws a stone today
And kills a bird yesterday!

Falola's identification with Eshu may be understandable in terms of aspiration to unceasing transformations of possibilities at intersections of knowledge, of embrace of change as fundamental to existence, of creativity within the dynamism of time as  central in the tension between biological mortality and the immortality of effects of action, interpretative possibilities deducible from his career and from his book In Praise of Greatness.

On Thu, 3 Dec 2020 at 11:10, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:

Esu, according to Dos Santos, as referenced by Ogundipe on Esu and as stated by Falola in Esu, God of Imaginative Frontiers, may be understood as embaying those qualities of ultimate possibility-a way of describing Olodumare- that constitute human individuality and creativity in its grounding in the enablement of that individuality and creativity by that ultimate power through ase, creative, cosmic force that pervades all existence and enables individual creativity.

Dos Santos states of Esu that everyone has their own Esu, and without that Esu, the person would not even know they exist.

Bolaji Idowu's Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, describes Esu as the privileged embodiment of ase, creative, cosmic force emanating from Olodumare and as messenger between deities and humans.

Falola describes Esu in his edited book book as both ubiquitous and individualized, such that Esu is not only everywhere but his altar may also be  in one's heart.

Henry Luis Gates Jr superbly analyses Esu's role as guide to understanding the oracular mysteries of Ifa in his The Signifying Monkey.

A  classic ese ifa, Ifa literary piece on Esu is magnificent in evoking the paradoxes represented by the intersector of dimensions, connector between possibilities of being, messenger between forms of existence, trickster and yet embodiment of the dynamism  and unpredictability  of cosmic force, ase, the one known as Esu-

Eshu, God of Change-My own title and paragraphing but with link to text source

Eshu turns right into wrong, wrong into right.
When he is angry, he hits a stone until it bleeds.
When he is angry, he sits on the skin of an ant.
When he is angry, he weeps tears of blood.

Eshu slept in the house -
But the house was too small for him:
Eshu slept on the verandah -
But the verandah was too small for him:
Eshu slept in a nut -
At last he could stretch himself!

Eshu walked through the groundnut farm.
The tuft of his hair was just visible:
If it had not been for his huge size,
He would not be visible at all.

Lying down, his head hits the roof:
Standing up, he cannot look into the cooking pot.

He throws a stone today
And kills a bird yesterday!

Falola's identification with Eshu may be understandable in terms of aspiration to unceasing transformations of possibilities at intersections of knowledge, of embrace of change as fundamental to existence, of creativity within the dynamism of time as  central in the tension between biological mortality and the immortality of effects of action, interpretative possibilities deducible from his career and from his book In Praise of Greatness.

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