Where is shango practiced

Shango's staff visualizes the unpredictable and violent power of the divine being. This power is personified through dance. The practice is part of the Yoruba people's history. The religious worship centers on the Chapelle, a small cult house, and the Palais, a tent where ceremonies and healing take place. At the festival, an entranced devotee, the elegunshango, dances to the sharp staccato rhythms of the bata drum and waves the staff, Oshe, with violent and threatening gestures--and then suddenly draws it to himself in a motion of quiet serenity.

In one account regarding the Oshe Shango, the female figure who balances the ax, the sign of Shango's power, is equated with the "caprice and creative experience of human sexuality. Shango's power is compared to the libidinal drive which may prove dangerous to the possibilities of creative sexual relationships.

This interpretation may reinforce racial stereotypes of African male sexual prowess. Perhaps the Shango cult may instead be viewed as a warning of the arrogant use of military power to political leadership. Mama Leta, koriko kara! The drummers pick up the beat.

It holds, for now. These Mama Leta manifestations get things off to a good start. After more Mama Leta songs, aimed at pleasing the old woman spirit, Leader Michael suddenly gets taken over by the spirit of Ogun—evident because he starts to swing his arm about in a slashing motion, as though he were holding a cutlass.

On cue, another mongwa, Leader Gordon, takes over singing, and switches orishas yet again, this time back to Ogun. Ogun berele amio, Ogun berele! It has now been roughly two hours since the start of the Litany, and the Rotation has covered only Ogun and Mama Leta, a reminder that the feast is a weeklong process, and it unfolds slowly.

The offering of goats for Ogun is about to begin, and the drumming will resume, but I am tired, and decide not to stay. As I head home, I consider what a treat it is to attend a feast led by Leader Michael Osouna, who comes from Trinidad to Brooklyn to carry on this feast each year. Michael is a bigtime calypsonian in Trinidad—sobriquet Sugar Aloes—and so attending his feast is a bit like having front row tickets to a great concert.

Moreover, Michael is not only an excellent singer with a sharp and distinctive voice, he also knows more Orisha songs than any other song leader I have heard.

With him in fine form, the opening night went well, and I can tell: it is going to be a good week. Second night of the feast. Osain Night. The mongwa Dexter begins things tonight, though Leader Michael is by his side. The Ogun Rotation starts at 2. Oftentimes, on a Wednesday night feast, there will be four different Osains at the same time.

Tonight, though, it is Shakpana who manifests first, on a woman—as is often the case. She comes on cue: right at the beginning of the Shakpana songs, which begin after nearly one hour of singing for Ogun and Mama Leta. Shakpana arrives at about , on a stoutly built, light-skinned Afro-Trinidadian woman wearing cornrows and a rainbow-colored dress. Various lead singers, called chantwells —Michael, Gordon, Brooks—lead the congregation through the rotation of calling during which Shakpana comes , pleasure, work, and dismissal songs.

They just start to sing songs for Osain when Shakpana returns to the heavens, leaving the Trini woman to collapse in the arms of her fellow congregants.

It is am. The drummers take a break. Later, Osain will manifest. Then it will be time to prepare for the offering to Osain of goats and fowl.

Third night. Shango Night. While earlier in the week, it is primarily the main members of the church who come, beginning Thursday, and continuing on into Saturday morning, many more from the local Orisha population mainly Trinidaians will pass through.

This means bigger crowds for singing, and it also means more drummers and lead singers. On this night, the mongwa Dedan comes.

When he sings it is with maximum effort, his voice coming from deep within his chest, the veins popping out on his forehead. Once Dedan arrives, Leader Michael turns things over to him. The music is sweet. A number of the people just stand there watching.

Leader Michael yells at the crowd, chastising their lack of participation. The second round comes much later, when the sun is coming up on Saturday morning, and Ogun manifests on Leader Dedan. When this late-feast Ogun comes, he takes over the palais. He dances with the sword, fiercely, and enjoys the singing of the crowd. He directs a few young boys to take a turn at the drums, encouraging them, the next generation, to play and learn.

He tosses to the drummers bottles of wine and Forres Park rum the Trinidad brand , as gifts for their service during the week. When he finally leaves, and Leader Dedan falls to the ground before the sweating drummers, the music stops, and Dedan is slowly revived back to consciousness. There is a break in the feast, and people eat food—roti and curried goat.

While the previous pages describe an Orisha feast experientially, I next explain the logic and structure of Trinidad Orisha songs, making reference to specific recordings from the feast to illustrate my points. The above ethnography describes the day-to-day progression of a typical Orisha feast, implicitly demonstrating the way music tracks ritual development; in contrast, the analysis below shows more explicitly the present argument regarding the inseparable relationship of music and ritual in the Orisha religion of Trinidad.

Each night of the Mount Moriah feast begins with Christian prayers and hymns. On a typical feast night, congregants begin slowly to gather a little after pm. It is silent in the palais at this point, but not for long. In this example, Leader Michael leads the chorus in the usual Baptist lining-out style, singing each line quickly just before the slowly metered response.

The chorus sings in a style that might be described as heterophonic with some added harmonies in homorhythmic texture, while the drummers play rolling patterns in free meter. Lyrically simple songs like this one exist mainly as oral traditions, rather than as written ones.

After about 30 minutes, the Christian hymns and prayers are finished, and are then followed by the Litany, a set of sung prayers exclusively in Trinidad Yoruba language. With the shift away from English, the Litany signals the transition from Baptist to Orisha, from Christian to Yoruba, into what might be thought of as the true beginning of the feast.

Leader Michael explains that the Litany should be approached in a calm and humble manner, appropriate because the point is to prepare for the orishas , to request their presence at the Orisha service:. Litany is not to be jovial. Not melancholy, but devotion, calmliness, humility about it. Because you are asking that they [i. You are asking with reverence. Before it, and along with the hymn singing in English, people are often milling about, involved in a range of activities, for example, preparations for the feast being made by church mothers.

Sometimes, drummers do not even enter the palais prior to the singing of this song. A second chantwell can be heard leading the responses, becoming something of a second leader, filling in the melodic gaps with a quasi-lining out style of singing. In the following notation, the bar lines divide the five lines of text, while the note durations approximate the relative rhythm of this free flowing musical work.

The song also structures coordinated movement: during four repetitions of the song, the members turn and face one of four directions, symbolizing east, west, north, and south. The mongwa recites the five-line stanza, which is then repeated exactly by the congregation, in harmony, four times total four calls and four responses. For the first repetition, the congregants face the drummers, along with the singing mongwa. Second, the entire congregation turns their bodies to face to the back.

Third, they face to the right. For the final repetition, the assembled face to the left. Figure 2. At the end of the second phrase, note that this melody includes an example of melisma, uncommon in the mostly syllabic Orisha repertoire. You go to the four cardinal points. You have to give that libation because you are calling. You have to remember now, you are not in your motherland, or where you would consider, where your foreparents come from.

So you go to the four points. And then you call. Figure 4. When they have made the rounds, they return to the area of the sword, and begin to sing the opening group of songs for Ogun. At the close of the Litany, the congregation begins a new group of songs, with drumming accompaniment. These songs are for Ogun. Songs progress in certain orderings, with typical progressions from song to song, and over a longer period of time, with typical progressions from orisha to orisha.

You have a Rotation. A full progression of songs for all the orishas can take several days. But each night of the feast, songs begin with Ogun. The opening Ogun songs follow a standardized progression, consisting of four minor key songs that modulate to major usually around the fifth song.

The minor key tonality distinguishes these first Ogun songs, departing from the preliminary music Christian hymns and Yoruba Litany songs , which was all in a major key, the tonal shift helping to signal a progression in the ritual. With the opening Ogun Rotation, not only does the drumming begin in earnest, but also members of the congregation start to move in a ring, in a kind of dance which only occurs at this point in the feast. Then people would make the rings, and then they walk around the rings.

Still holding the items, these congregants circle the area in front of the drums, in a single-file marching dance—left-right-right-left, When the chantwell changes to a new song, the dancers spin around, touch the ground, and reverse the direction of the circle, now moving the ring in the opposite direction. Like participant movement toward the four corners and the four directions, the ring march is one of several coordinated music-directed movements in the early part of the Orisha feast.

After it, singing for Ogun continues, but there are no more group dances at the feast. Now, the main action in the feast is spirit manifestation, for which song rotations with drumming will continue for hours, being interrupted occasionally by a spirit who wishes to speak to the congregation. The music can be organized into three main song types: those for before, during, and at the end of spirit possessions.

Maureen Warner-Lewis has found that Trinidad Yoruba songs are not homogeneous; they historically encompassed a range of genres and purposes ; As adults, the Yoruba often honor several of these deities.

According to oral tradition, the high god, Olorun Olodumare , asked Orishala to descend from the sky to create the first Earth at Ile-Ife. Orishala was delayed and his younger brother, Oduduwa, accomplished the task. Shortly afterwards, sixteen other orisha came down from heaven to create human beings and live on Earth with him. The descendants of each of these deities are said to have spread Yoruba culture and religious principles throughout the rest of Yorubaland.

Respecting the ritual primacy of the holy city of Ife legitimizes both a royal hierarchy and the basic pantheon of Yoruba gods, estimated variously at , , , or more. Some divinities are primordial, having existed when Oduduwa was creating the Earth, and others are heroes or heroines who left an important impression on the people.

Divinities may also be natural phenomena, such as mountains, hills, and rivers that have influenced the peoples' history and lives. Of the hundreds of gods worshipped by the Yoruba, the most popular Religion is equal in importance to kinship and politics for the structure of Yoruba society.

Though both Christianity and Islam have made deep inroads, many forms of traditional religious expression persist and remain very much a part of Yoruba daily life. There are at least recognized Orisha, or gods, in the Yoruba pantheon. Many of these Orisha are localized ancestral spirits or nature gods and are worshiped in relatively small areas.

Others are universal in Yoruba belief and maintain vigorous cults in Nigeria and in Cuba and Brazil as well. The most powerful Orisha include Olorun, the creator god; Shango, god of thunder who has the power to bring wealth; Ogun, the god of iron and war who is the modern patron of truck drivers; Oshun, the Yoruba "Venus," and Ibeji, the god of twins.

According to the article:. Yoruba devotees believe in one high god, Olodumare oh-LOH-dumare , explains Abimbola, but the cosmos is filled with other entities as well. The good divinities, or orisas, come in the form of trees, forests, mountains, or metal. The ajogun a-joe-gun , or bad spirits, represent death, deceit, imprisonment, or disease.

The orisa and ajogun "are eternally set against each other," says Abimbola, dressed in a traditional outfit of long embroidered tunic and pants. Unlike many who worship in Western faiths, Yoruba followers don't attend weekly services. When a practitioner has a problem, he or she confers with a babalawo BAH-BAH-LAH-woah , or priest, who provides counsel, makes sacrifices, creates herbal remedies, or performs divinations that analyze individual problems. How does the religion work in daily life?

Walter Clark, 45, a Yoruba devotee who lives in Jamaica Plain, gives an example as he sits in the Ile, located in a house painted blood red to represent the divinity of thunder, Shango.

About a year ago, Clark started a job working as a welder. On his second day of work, he got hit by a car and fractured a leg. That yam offering brings us to Yoruba's bete noire: sacrifice. In Yoruba, explains Abimbola, "sacrifice is a code of communication. We don't think that verbalization is enough. It's our own myopia and arrogance that makes us think that every divinity will hear us.

The perception of followers killing goats and chickens has made the religion controversial among organizations concerned with animal protection. What people don't understand, says Abimbola, is that a sacrifice can consist of liquid, clothes, food like Clark's yam , or animals.

Of the latter form of sacrifice, Abimbola notes, "there is not a preponderance of it. And One strong complaint critics make about cultural festivals is that they depict idol worshipping. But the so-called obnoxious traditions that characterise the festivals are a gesture of appreciation to the gods and goddesses. Indeed, the appreciative gesture is extended to royal fathers, who, as the custodians of culture, are eulogised every year for a peculiar impressive performance.

The trend is not likely to be arrested despite the ascendancy of Christianity and other alien religions. In spite of the general apathy some people seem to show about these festivals, interest remains high about the family values and culture by the government and Blacks in the Diaspora.