A GLOSSARY OF AFRICAN
NAMES USED IN THE POEMS

ABOMEY: The inland capital and heart of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey. A center of culture and power, it was also the seat of the courts of the Aladaxonu, the famed Panther Kings.

AKAI: Tight narrow braids of hair wrapped with thread and arranged about the head to form the elaborate coiffure of modern Dahomean high fashion.

AMAZONS: Unlike in other African systems of belief, women in Dahomey, as the Creators of Life, were not enjoined from the shedding of blood. The Amazons were highly prized, well-trained, and ferocious women warriors who guarded, and fought under the direction of, the Panther Kings of Dahomey.

ASEIN: Small metal altars upon high poles before which the deified ancestors are worshiped with offerings.

CONIAQUI: A West African people who occupy the area which is now part of Guinea and the Ivory Coast.

DAN: An ancient name for the kingdom of Dahomey (Danhomee).

ELEGBA, ELEGBARA, LEGBA: See ESHU.

ESHIDALE: A local Orisha of the Ife region in Nigeria, whose priests atone for and bury those who commit suicide by jumping up from the ground and falling upon their heads.

ESHU: Also known as Elegba in Dahomey and the New World, Eshu is the youngest and most clever son of Yemanjá (or of Mawulisa). The mischievous messenger between all the other Oriska-Vodu and humans, he knows their different languages and is an accomplished linguist who both transmits and interprets. This function is of paramount importance because the Orisha do not understand each other's language, nor the language of humans. Eshu is a prankster, also, a personification of all the unpredictable elements in life. He is often identified with the masculine principle, and his primary symbol is frequently a huge erect phallus. But Eshu-Elegba has no priests, and in many Dahomean religious rituals, his part is danced by a woman with an attached phallus. Because of his unpredictable nature, Eshu's shrines are built outside of every dwelling and village, and near every crossroads. He receives the first portion of any offering made to any other Orisha-Vodu, to help insure correct transmittal and a speedy answer.

FA: One's personal destiny—the personification of fate. This is also the name given to a widespread and elaborate metaphysical system of divination much used in Dahomey. Fa is sometimes called the writing of Mawulisa.

MAWULISA: Within the major pantheon of the Vodu, Mawulisa is the Dahomean female-male, sky-goddess-god principle. Sometimes called the first inseparable twins of the Creator of the Universe, Mawulisa (Mawu-Lisa) is also represented as west-east, night-day, moon-sun. More frequently, Mawu is regarded as the Creator of the Universe, and Lisa is either called her first son, or her twin brother. She is called the mother of all the other Vodu, and as such, is connected to the Orisha Yemanja. (See also: SEBOULISA.)

ORISHA: The Orisha are the goddesses and gods—divine personifications—of the Yoruba peoples of Western Nigeria. As the Yoruba were originally a group of many different peoples with a similar language, there are close to six hundred Orisha, major and local, with greater or lesser powers, some overlapping.

The neighboring people of Dan, or Dahomey, as it came to be called, received many of their religious forms from the Yoruba, so many of the Orisha reappear with different names as Dahomean goddesses and gods, or Vodu (Vodun). These Orisha frequently became the chief Vodu of a group of other natively Dahomean divine principles having similar powers and interests.

The Orisha-Vodu are divine, but not omnipotent. They are very powerful, but not always just. They are very involved in human affairs, and offerings must be made to maintain their good wishes. Many of the names and rituals of the Orisha-Vodu survive and flourish in religions practiced in Cuba, Brazil, Haiti, Grenada, and the United States. It is in Haiti and the U.S. that the religious traditions of Yoruba and Dahomey are most closely blended.

ORISHALA: A major Orisha, Orishala gives shape and form to humans in the womb before birth. His priests are in charge of burying women who die in pregnancy. He is sometimes also called Obatala, which means the God of Whiteness. (In the New World religions, Obatala is frequently female.) Those who are born crippled or deformed are under Orishala's special protection. Some say these cripples and albinos were made purposely by the Orisha so that his worship would not be forgotten; others say that those deformed were errors fashioned during Orishala's drunkenness. Red palm oil and wine are taboo at his shrine, and the color white is sacred to him, as are all white foods.

SHANGO: One of Yemanjá's best-known and strongest sons, Shango is the Orisha of lightning and thunder, war, and politics. His colors are bright red and white, and his symbol is a two-headed axe. In Nigeria, the head of the Shango cult is frequently a woman, called the Alagba. In Dahomey, he is known as Hervioso, chief Vodu of the Thunder Pantheon.

SHOPONA: The Orisha of smallpox. He is the god of earth and growing things; the disease is considered the most severe punishment for those who break his taboos, or whose names are whistled near his shrine. Lesser punishments are measles and boils and other skin eruptions. He is very powerful and greatly feared. In Dahomey, he is called Sagbatá, and long before Jenner in Europe, Sagbatá's priests knew and practiced the principle of live vaccination, guarding it jealously.

SEBOULISA: The goddess of Abomey—“The Mother of us all.” A local representation of Mawulisa, she is sometimes known as Sogbo, creator of the world. (See also: MAWULISA.)

YAA ASANTEWA: An Ashanti Queen Mother in what is now Ghana, who led her people in several successful wars against the British in the nineteenth century.

YEMANJÁ: Mother of the other Orisha, Yemanjá is also the goddess of oceans. Rivers are said to flow from her breasts. One legend has it that a son tried to rape her. She fled until she collapsed, and from her breasts, the rivers flowed. Another legend says that a husband insulted Yemanjá's long breasts, and when she fled with her pots he knocked her down. From her breasts flowed the rivers, and from her body then sprang forth all the other Orisha. River-smooth stones are Yemanjá's symbol, and the sea is sacred to her followers. Those who please her are blessed with many children.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bascom, William. The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. New York. 1969.

Courlander, Harold. Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes. Fawcett. Greenwich, Conn. 1973.

Herskovits, Melville. Dahomey, Vols. I & II. J. J. Augustin. New York. 1934.

Yoruba Temple. The Gods of Africa. Great Benin Books. New York. n.d.