4 - Ṣàngó's Thunder: Poetic Challenges to Islam and Christianity

Summary

The previous two chapters have explored the relationship between Ṣàngó, Islam and Christianity through the institution of ọbaship and the lives of the Tìmìs of Ede. In this chapter, I look at what Ṣàngó's own words – or, more precisely, the oral texts central to his worship – tell us about the deity, and its relationship to Islam and Christianity. It is through verbal arts that Ṣàngó worshippers invoke the deity, express their personal relationship with Ṣàngó and comment on their roles as Ṣàngó worshippers in the community. Most importantly for the understanding of the texts surrounding Ṣàngó, his worship takes place in a community in which most people identify themselves either as Muslims or Christians. As a result, the texts that surround him form part of a larger web of songs, sermons and other texts in which members of other religions also praise their own god or spread their own faith. The performance of Ṣàngó's oral literature therefore not only asserts his worshippers’ position but also comments on the positions of others. Emerging from a competitive landscape of religious performance, Ṣàngó's verbal art is thus part of a collective poetic competition of religions, in which both accommodation and challenge play an important role.

Karin Barber explains that ‘Yoruba òrìṣà can scarcely be apprehended without taking into account the specific textuality of the oral genres through which they are created, maintained and communicated with’. An important aspect of the textuality of these oral genres derives from the fact that the òrìṣà exist primarily through the highly personal and emotional bond with individual followers. If we then understand the oral literature surrounding Ṣàngó worship as also reflecting poets’ and performers’ individual experiences, their spiritual and emotional orientation may determine or colour the perceived religious, social or historical content of the poetry. As the result of highly divergent and personal experiences of Ṣàngó, the oral arts surrounding him cannot offer monolithic articles of faith or understanding. Issuing apparently tolerant appeals for peaceful coexistence even as they appropriate the powers of other religions, they offer glimpses of the ambivalent nature of Ṣàngó's relationship with Christianity and especially Islam.