Religious and Spiritual Meaning-Making

Babalawos in Ruth Landes’ City of Women

Ruth Landes’ City of Women was realized after the American Anthropologist spent 11 months between 1938 and 1939 in the Brazilian City of Salvador de Bahia. Her time there observed a strong Afro-Diasporic Religious Tradition and engaged deeply with a series of famous temple leaders to present a dynamic and complex tradition. As she writes in her article A cult matriarchate and male homosexuality, The Candomblé Temples of Salvador are women dominated (). There are, however, at the time of Landes’ writing, Babalawos who are present. Eliseo Martiniano do Bonfim was a central character in Landes’ book. Born in Brazil, Bonfim was one of a few Salvadorans from an upper middle class who dreamed of returning to Africa and did so upon the realization of their freedom. This community still exists today in and around Lagos. Yet Bonfim decided to return to Salvador de Bahia, after spending extensive time learning about the traditions as they were practiced in the “bush” of Yorubaland (). Bonfim is respected in Salvador but struggles to attract followers; the knowledge of Babalawos was of less interest to the community in favour of the practices of the Māe De Santas and their women oriented practices, with men opting instead to be Ogans (patrons, supporters) rather than Babalawos themselves (). While Landes arrives to Brazil at a time where the practice of the Babalawo is effectively dead in the popular practice of Salvador de Bahia, she arrives at a time when the practice is shifting towards the emergence of the “Cabloco” from Recife, which incorporates Indigenous Spiritualities and diverts from the established ceremonial protocols. Conversely, the cult of Babalawos remained popular in Cuba and This encourages us to also understand absence, presence, and emergence as a practice that is not exclusively moulded by outside forces but also rather displays a certain dynamism within the community indicating shifts and changes that occur.

Eshu and Eshus in Brazil

Like Anansi, the deity whose trickster nature populates the imaginary of many tales and legends, Eshu’s nature, for Christians, was seen as deviant and he became associated with the Devil as a result. This comparison, however, misunderstands the complexity of Yoruba Worldviews and Eshu-Eleggua’s nature and role within them. Nigerian Writer Wole Soyinka, speaking above, provides great insight into how this process of the Satanization of Eshu-Eleggua occurred.

As Soyinka mentions, the Yoruba worldview was structurally different from the Christian one because there was not a belief in Satan. To elaborate on the above writings as well as the part of the clip where he speaks about Brazil, the cult of the “Exus” in Brazil represents a mechanism in which marginalized people can empower themselves while working around oppressive Christian Moralities (). Pomba Gira, the female Exus, represent a certain type of reality that women in Brazil pass through yet these stories remain untold because they fall outside of the boundaries of acceptability. 

Are Pomba Giras Archives?

The fascination with Pomba Gira in the Brazilian Popular imaginary represents an identification with a type of lifestyle which is often made absent from popular narratives. As Ruth Landes observes in City of Women, the lives of Black Women are complex and nuanced, influenced by many factors, most of all the state (). As we will explore below, there are nuanced forms of criminalization that take place through the enforcement of social structures in spite of the shifting legal context. 

A collection of Cuban Patakines, or stories, compiled by Lydia Cabrera in her landmark work El Monte, recently translated in 2023 by ​​David Font-Navarrete.

Eleggua facilitates the transfer of the Divination Tray from Shango to Ifa 

““In another story, we are told, “In the beginning, before Olofi distanced himself from the world, he gave each orisha a mission. He gave out the jobs, and Elegua—because he’s such a tramp—was left without a job to do.” After a while, he complained to Changó about his situation. When the jobs were assigned, Changó had been tasked with Ifa. But Changó was very young and too much of a rumbero—there were sick people in the world, but no doctor, and Changó did not worry about curing them. On the advice of his mother Yemaya, who was Orula’s wife at the time, Changó handed ifa (ache, ifa, and okuele) over to Orula.” (85)

Why Eleggua Lives at the doorway

Orula has an Elegua. One day, Orula got dressed up: he dressed in white clothes from head to toe, every detail just right, and, swaggering around the way babalawos do, he went out. Elegua thought,“I don’t have a stove. I don’t have acha (a cigar). I have no owo. I have no obini (woman). I have nothing! Orula doesn’t give me anything.” And he left the house too. He went to the corner. People went by looking for Orula, and Elegua told them, “He moved.” When Orula came back, Elegua told him, “Nobody has come!” And time went on without anybody coming . . . Orula was inside his house and Elegua was on the corner, giving everyone fake directions to Orula’s house. 

San Francisco watched his bread and butter go away, and he called Elegua. “Barayiku! Listen . . . Come here and have some food. I’m going to give you a woman . . . Which one do you want? Do you want Oshun? Oya? Yemaya?” 

Elegua answered,“Bring me women to keep me company, but nothing more than that. I have my woman out there in the street.” 

Elegua had Eson, but he was not serious about her. 

Orula said,“Barayiku, I’m going to make a room for you, back there, so you can be comfortable. You can live there and eat well.” 

“A room at the back of the house? Kosi! No, sir . . . Put me right here at the door . . . Just here to one side.” 

“But you’re going to eat all of that? Smoked fish, hutia, epo, aguado, akuko, oti? All of that, right here at the door?” 

“Yes sir. Right here. And if you don’t give me the food, I’ll go out and lock the door from the outside!” 

That’s why Elegua lives in a little cabinet, or a little box, next to doorways . . . And if you don’t honor him, he leaves and punishes you.” (86)

Eleggua Obtains Ifa

“Elegua had asked Orunla to give him Ifa. But Orunla refused him categorically when Elegua confessed that, at that moment, he had no money to pay him. 

Then Elegua jumped up in the air and landed on his own head, injuring himself with a deep wound which bled profusely. When Orula’s wife saw Elegua in her house, lying in a pool of blood, she got scared and pleaded with her husband to give Elegua what he wanted.

“Give him Ifa, or else we’ll get in trouble with the Law!” And Orula gave him Ifa for free, and Elegua went back to his corner happy. 

Later, Olokun’s son Inle passed by the corner. Whenever he saw Elegua, Inle was in the habit of saying, “Salute me, Elegua. I’m a doctor. Ologun.” 

But this time it was Elegua who stepped forward and said, “Salute me, because I’ve been initiated in Ifa.” Olokun’s son said, “I don’t believe you .” 

He asked Elegua to divine for him, and Elegua said,“There’s a big tree at your house that fills up with birds in the evening . . .” 

“Bah! Liar. You already knew that perfectly well without divination.” “Wait,” said Elegua. “This morning, your mother yelled at you. She was indignant, because you grabbed her butt, then her husband surprised you .” 

Surprised, Olokun’s son responded, “That’s true. That’s a secret. You couldn’t have seen it, and nobody could’ve told you about it.” 

Olokun’s son told his mother about the encounter with Elegua. He told her that he had resolved to become a babalawo. When Olokun approved her son’s decision, he went to ask Elegua how much he would charge to initiate him in Ifa.“Lots of money and lots of goods!” 

Olokun’s son agreed to give him everything he asked for, and Elegua initiated him to Ifa. Then he paid Orula twice what Orula had asked for to make Elegua’s Ifa.” (87)

Elegua Abanuke’s friendship with Orunmila

Elegua (Abanuke) is the best ally of Orula—the god Ifa—and, of course, babalawos. “He is their security.” “Elegua protects the babala a lot.” No one needs Elegua more than a babalawo.“Orula and Elegua are one.” (The Eleguas that belong to Orula, like Laroye Biba Kikeño, have a small metal arrow on the top of their heads.) 

In another legend, Orula is forced to demonstrate his clairvoyance to Olofi, and he passes the test thanks to Elegua (Abanuke): 

“Baba, they say there’s a Black man with red skin, Orumila, performing divination.” 

“Orula? Bah! There’s no better diviner than me.” 

“Well, they’re saying he is, Father. They say he can see everything. He predicts what’s going to happen and what happened in the past by making marks in white powder on a wood tray, or by tossing a chain.” 

Olofi, who was the world’s most suspicious old man, wanted to confuse Ifa. “I’ll find out whether or not his mouth tells lies. Yo fémma . I’ll show them. They say old Olofi’s ñangando. I’m going to dress up and make a face like egun (muerto). Tell them I died.” (88)

Whenever the Supreme Being speaks in one of these tales, the narrator assumes the flavor and style of speech of negros bozales. Elegua goes everywhere, he sees and hears everything, and he gets involved in everything. He sat and listened to Olofi’s conversation, then he ran to Orumila and told him everything he had heard. Soon, Orula was summoned to see Olofi, who was lying rigid on a platform surrounded by his children and his “entourage,” who were all crying and lamenting over him: 

“Ay! Ay! Olofi ya okuo. Olofi! Look at him! Ya Ikú!” Then Orula arrived at Olofi’s side and said, “Olofi is not aro (sick).30 Olofi is odara, agadagodo (healthy, strong)! Olofi is not okuo (dead). Our Father Olofi wants to know if I’m a diviner, if I ofe (see), and that’s why he’s pretending to be dead.” 

Then Olofi congratulated him and agreed to give Orula whatever he wanted. The first thing Orula asked for was parubo Elegua, the food Elegua was awaiting: “akuku kereke [a young rooster], epo [palm oil], akute [hutia], eya [fish], obi [coconut], akara [buns], oti [liquor], acha [tobacco, cigars], atana [candle], aguado [corn]. Modije! Thank you.” (89)