The Cosmos in a Staff : The Glory of Ọpa Ọsanyin: An Understudied Example of Great Yorùbá Art Part 3 Ọpa Ọsanyin as Cosmological Form
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 1
I find this example delightful in the evocative force of aspiration suggested by the lyrical rhythm of the way the birds are constructed as straining towards the central bird.
The gold sheen with which they are covered amplifies the sense of something glorious and intimate, a conclave and a celebration.
Image from Pinterest
This essay demonstrates the significance, within and beyond its Yorùbá origins, of the dramatization of the beauty of nature and its evocative force that is Ọpa Ọsanyin, a metal structure made up of a pole with birds or a single bird, a staff understood as embodying the power of Ọsanyin, the Yorùbá origin Òrìsà cosmology deity of the spiritual and biological power of plants.
The images come from various online sources. Those the sources of which have not been identified will be identified in a future edition of the essay.
This essay is part of a sequence exploring the symbolic possibilities of Opa Osanyin. These essays are organized in two major units.
The first of these is the unit to which this essay belongs, "The Cosmos in a Staff: The Glory of Opa Osanyin: An Understudied Example of Great Yoruba Art," and which is dedicated to the detailed exploration of this symbolism.
The second is ''The Tree, the Bird and Her Sixteen Bird Companions: Foundations of Opa Osanyin Philosophy, Mysticism and Magic. It is an application of the ideas developed in the expository series to a poetic dramatisation of the possibilities of Opa Osanyin symbolism in developing a philosophical, mystical and magical system.
This system explores ideas of ultimate meaning, philosophy, using them as a means of imaginative relationship with ultimate reality, mysticism, within the context of a sensitivity to the cosmos as embodying and enabling the mysterious, magic.
The sequence of essays in these series is at the Opa Osanyin, Philosophy, Mysticism and Magic blog.
Contents
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design,
Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 1
Abstract
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design,
Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 2
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Evocative of Ọsanyin's Physical Peculiarities and Powers
Deity of the Creative Powers of Vegetation
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 3
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Embodying Foundational Ideas of Classical Yorùbá Cosmology
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Representing Ọsanyin
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 4
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Symbolizing the Human Being
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 5
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 6
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Suggesting Feminine Spiritual Powers
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 7
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 8
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 9
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 10
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 11
Ideational and Structural Constellations of the Feminine Matrix
Opa Ọsanyin and the Symbolism of the Number Sixteen
Opon Ifa Rimmed by Birds in Conclave
Invocation of Arcane Mothers
Birds, Plants and Cosmic Force Unified in Opa Osanyin
Plants as Cosmological Entities
An Invitation
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 2
Ọpa Ọsanyin could also be constituted by a number of birds on top of the pole and others below or of the transmutation of the circling birds into an abstract structure, in the characteristic circular formation, as seen in the following example from Thompson's "Icons of the Mind"( 54):
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Evocative of Ọsanyin's Physical
Peculiarities and Powers
Deity of the Creative Powers of Vegetation
The evocation of the mystery and power of the forest are constructed in terms of a number of figures in classical Yorùbá thought, one of whom is Ọsanyin, dweller in the remotest parts of the forest, adept in the most recondite distillations of the spiritual and biological powers of plants, as described by Don Egbelade in “Yorùbá Ọpa Ọsanyin Erinle Herbalists Staff,” deity of “the esoteric powers of plants and their use to generate àse [creative, cosmic force] for praying, cursing, healing, or compelling others to obey one’s command,’’ as described by Babatunde Lawal in "Embodying the Sacred in Yorùbá Art’’ (2012, 17).
Ọsanyin's magic
is understood as "so powerful that...he is petitioned for any purpose
where unconquerable magic is required," as Egbelade puts it, his knowledge
of leaves indispensable for constructing shrines to the various deities of Yorùbá
origin Òrìsà spirituality.
This is so because, as described
by Thompson in ''Icons of the Mind,'' (53) and by Ulli
Beier in The Return of the Gods: The Sacred Art of Susanne Wenger, every orisha or deity is associated with particular
leaves or herbal combinations, making the forest a microcosm of the cosmos
as embodied by the orisa.
Each orisa, as depicted by Beier, is perceivable as the
universe as seen from a particular perspective, with the totality of the infinite perceptual possibilities of existence being Olodumare, creator and sustainer of
the cosmos.
The image of Ọsanyin unifies the
vegetative, the cosmological and the human. Through the story of how Ọsanyin came to possess one eye and one leg,
this picture integrates the humanistic with the non-human in a picture of
profoundly ironic but deeply moralistic power.
This picture invests magical power,
knowledge of arcane forces generated from harnessing cosmic force, àse, in
its expression in the world of plants, with psychological qualities grounded in
relationships between humans and non-humans.
These interpersonal sensitivities
are thereby evoked as central to the harnessing of the great
constellations of spiritual and biological potency embodied in and
represented by the forest, a microcosm of cosmos, as Abiola Irele
describes classical Yorùbá understanding of
the forest in "Tradition and the Yorùbá Writer: D.O. Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola and Wole
Soyinka" in The African Experience in Literature and Ideology
(1981, 174- 196, 179-181).
The forest environment inspires the orientation of Ijálá, Yorùbá hunter's poetry, in celebrating not only Ogún, the hunter, but ''animal and plant life [ seeking] to capture the essence and relationships of growing things, and the insights of man into the secrets of the universe, " as decribed by Wole Soyinka (Myth, Literature and the African World, 1990, 28).
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 3
An amazing quality of this artistic form is the limitless scope of creativity brought to bear on the sculptural
interpretation of the fixed motifs of a lone bird or a bird surrounded by other birds.
Having seen a good number of the numerous images of this art form online, I am yet to see more than a few pieces that do not operate at a high level of conception and execution, that do not interpret this fixed range of representation in their own unique way, demonstrating imaginative dexterity and high technical skill in the actualization of this imaginative vision.
The modes of depiction of these motifs range from various levels of realism, to various degrees of abstraction, in
which the bird atop the pole may suggest the impression generated by the image of a bird in flight, rather than evoke
details of avian form, as shown directly below:
Image Source
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Embodying Foundational Ideas of Classical Yorùbá Cosmology
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Representing Ọsanyin
The pole of the Ọsanyin staff on which a bird may be shown poised and around which other birds constellate, adapting Awo Fategbe on Ọsanyin, suggests Ọsanyin's unity of self within the singularity defined by his one leg, one eye and one functional ear.
Ọsanyin has one leg which yet outruns even the fleetest person on two legs, one eye which sees beyond the material world into its foundations at the nexus of matter and spirit.
One of his ears is "monstrous in dimension but hears nothing [while] the other ear is very small but perceives the sound of the brushing of the wings of a passing butterfly" as described by Thompson(54) referencing Lydia Cabrera's El Monte: Igbo Finda Ewe Orisha, Vitintinfinda (1954, 70-1) a book that complements Pierre Verger's great compilation of Yorùbá herbalogy in its various classifications and applications, Ewé: O Uso Das Plantas Na Sociedade Iorubá, Ewe: The Uses of Plants in Yorùbá Society (1995), an expansion of his Awon Ewe Ọsanyin: Yorùbá Medicinal Leaves (1967).
Ọsanyin's one eye and one leg are the outcome of his suffering a catastrophe on account of pride which had led him to disdain sharing his work and knowledge. After undergoing the destruction of one leg and one eye, he is compelled to rely on specialists in various spiritual disciplines to collect herbs which he is called upon to guide the understanding of their value and empower their latent creative capacities, a unity of activity between Ọsanyin and other knowledge specialists in Yorùbá culture suggesting both division and unity of labour vital to understanding and harnessing the powers of the universe represented by the world of plants.
Mason develops further in Black Gods the imagery correlating Ọsanyin and the staff understood as embodying his powers. He depicts the central motif of this artistic form in the image of a bird on a staff as evoking a bird on a tree. He describes the metal base of the staff as representing the tree's root system and the staff itself as the tree's trunk.
He understands the bird on the tree as representing Ọsanyin's communicative powers as projected through the bird as a creature of nature.
Ọsanyin mythology depicts him as also losing his voice in another incident different from that in which he lost his eye and leg, thus bird songs evoke his voice, their music his thoughts, the tree on which birds perch, the deity himself, rooted in Earth, but active in nature, as Mason's interpretation of this symbolism may be further interpreted.
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 4
The birds over which the lone board soars could be replaced by extrusions from the central pole, as in the example directly below, of projections suggesting a cross between bolts of lighting and the sinuosity of a snake and structures resembling grappling hooks, the bird achieving stylization in terms of the projectile verticality and streamlining of a missile yet evoking the palpitating life in the unmistakable contours of a bird:
Image Source
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Symbolizing the Human Being
The swift motion of birds through air and above Earth may become representative of the carrying of prayers to the creator of the universe, as Thompson (56) states of the related staff Opa Osun, the staff of babalawo, adepts in the esoteric knowledge of Ifa, referencing the traditional ruler of Iperu-Remu, from Nigeria's Yorùbá land, from a 1962 interview.
This human/divine association is reinforced by the understanding of the birds on the Opa Osun staff as ''associated...with the original creative spark placed in every person's mind by [Olodumare, the creator of the universe]'', states Thompson (56, 89) referencing the Araba Ekó [ a chieftaincy title in ] Isale-Ekó, from January 1972.
Thompson ( 57) further states this bond between human individuality and the divine as imaged by the staff is reinforced through a ritual process evident among Òrìsà devotees in Cuba:
[ The] connection between the bird-mounted osun staff and the head or mind of the initiate... is revealed, in Cuba, at the moment when a person is initiated into the traditional religion of the Yorùbá .
… four secret ingredients are placed both in the head of the initiate and the "head" of the osun [ uniting] the head of the devotee to the seal of destiny and mind, the vertical bird, emblem of the head. The ancient correlation of Ọsanyin's bird(s) with head and intelligence is reborn in utter clarity. The equivalence is subtle and compelling.
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 5
The example of Ọpa Ọsanyin shown directly
above demonstrates the combination of total abstraction and quasi-abstract depiction.
Total abstraction is evident in the extrusions from the
pole replacing the more conventional representations of the birds surrounding
the central bird.
Quasi-abstract depiction emerges in the central avian form as
it is poised, majestic and dynamic, atop the pole.
The abstractions represented by the extrusions are evocative of
jagged lightning, serpentine dynamism and hooks of power, amplifying the bird's
projection of commanding and yet elegantly potent presence as they exude from
the base of the avian form.
This combination of total and partial abstaction is is further stylized in what may be seen as a
progression from that form, as shown directly below.
In this next piece, the artist has fused the suggestion of the curve of a bird's neck with a minimalist evocation of avian shape. Uniqueness of design is generated, however, by distancing these conjunctions from explicit association with those references.
This is achieved by placing the evocation of the neck under the body suggesting the bird in flight. The body of the aerodynamic creature thus seems to bloom from the stalk from which it rises as if to escape into space in streamlined grandeur:
Particular conjunctions come to the fore at this point.
These include a conjunction within Yorùbá
origin Òrìsà cosmology between the bird atop the
Opa Osun staff and ''ori', the head, physical, mental and spiritual, that is the apex of the
''staff'' of life that is the human body and of the self enabled by that body in
the material world.
This ''the head,'' embraces both ''ori ode'', the biological
head and ''ori inu'' and ''ori okan'', inward head and inward mind.
Interpreting Lawal's presentation of these ideas in ''Representing the Self and
its Metaphysical Other in Yorùbá Art,''
''ori inu'' and ''ori okan'' represent consciousness understood in terms of a
continuum from mind to spirit.
This continuum ranges from mind as socially,
temporally, spatially and biologically constructed to mind as predating
and outliving terrestrial existence, an immortal entity embodying the self's
ultimate potential in the context of a relationship with Olodumare, the creator
of the universe.
These ideas are also conjunctive emerges with such images as the ancient Egyptian idea of the ''akh,'' the immortal identity of the self, an aspect of the self that is related to divine intelligence that ''pre-exists the Creation and which is also its final goal'', visualized as a bird, the ibis, as described by Lucie Lamy in Egyptian Mysteries ( 1981, 24-5).
The interpretation of the symbolism of the bird atop a pole in Opa Osun may also be extended to the same motif in Opa Osanyin on account of alignments between the disciplines represented by these staffs.
These correlations include the structural similarity in the construction of both staffs. The conjunctions also involve the intimate relationship between babalawo, who use Opa Osun, and herbalists, more closely associated with Ọpa Ọsanyin, since Osanyin's herbs are strategic for the babalawo's work. Another relationships between them is the association between Ifa, which the babalawo represents, and the sixteen birds that may be be depicted surrounding the staff in Opa Osanyin. The number sixteen and the bird motif are central to Odu, a foundational feminine figure in Ifa.
Thus, Ọpa Ọsanyin may be interpreted in terms of the deity Ọsanyin and may be understood in terms of the human being, nature and the cosmos, ideations further developed in Ifa.
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 6
Having gained some exposure to various
kinds of classical Yoruba art, often online, although I have also had the
privilege of face to face encounter with some examples of these cultural
treasures, I see the Ọpa Ọsanyin corpus as the Yoruba visual art form
that is most consistently operative at a high level of conception
and execution, in comparison with such classical Yorùbá art as the
Ogboni arts of edan ogboni and Onile, the magnificently idealised realism of
the Ife bronzes and the constellation of Ifa visual art represented by
opon ifa, agere ifa, iroke ifa, igba odu, along with other forms such as ere
ibeji and depictions of the deity Eshu.
I find the following example of Opa Osanyin compelling for its amplification of the lyricism of flight through the juxtaposition of four birds.
This Opa Osanyin uses the relative size and positioning of the birds to generate amplificatory similarity.
It also amplifies of the same motif of lyrical flight through contrast between the sizes and positions of the birds.
These exquisitely realized harmonies created through similarity and contrast are accentuated by the muscular bulge of the top of the staff on which the birds are poised, its rugged force emphasizing through contrast, the delicate forms of the birds seemingly aloft in space.
Ọpa Ọsanyin as
Suggesting Feminine Spiritual Powers
These are elevated ideas, quite straightforward in relation to the bird posed in majestic solitude atop the Ọpa Ọsanyin.
What about the birds often constructed below that apexical elevation?
Most of the interpretations I have read associate the birds with the entities known in Òrìsà cosmology as Awon Iya Wa, Our Mothers Arcane, and as aje, entities of contradiction, embodying the paradoxical unity of creativity and destruction, maternal nurturing and bloodthirsty destructiveness.
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 7
One may observe various examples of Yorùbá art forms not operating at the highest levels of conception and execution, but I am yet to see more than a few of that with the online images of Ọpa Ọsanyin.
The detail of an Ọpa Ọsanyin immediately below strikes me in the dramatization of rhythms evocative of both the dance of flames and undulations of snakes, as the birds clustered round the staff focus attention on the central bird, as depicted in the details and larger views shown below:
Some describe the birds as representing Ọsanyin's invocation of the presence of the arcane mothers in enabling the efficacy of the spiritual creations he effects through the use of plants.
Others interpret the birds as signifying the evil forces Ọsanyin triumphs over, represented, in some accounts, by the destructive activity of the mothers of occult power.
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 8
Various reasons could be speculated upon for the consistency in imaginative quality of conception and skill in
execution of the various Ọpa Ọsanyin I have seen online as compared to my encounters with other examples
of
classical Yorùbá art. Perhaps only a comparative examination of various
factors can provide a conclusive explanation.
Avian elevation and equestrian motion, the grandeur of the bird in flight and the majesty of the mounted horseman, are combined in the Ọpa Ọsanyin directly below, their synergistic evocative force amplified in being a consummation of various points of visual attention marked on the vertical ascent of the staff.
The conclave of birds directly below the horseman crowned by the elevated lone bird may be seen as suggesting, as in other similar designs of bird constellation and elevated single bird in Ọpa Ọsanyin design, the distillation, within the crowning figures, of the values represented by the conclave.
The combination of the horseman and the bird poised above him evoke images of swift motion akin to the Yoruba depiction of imaginative expression as horses, means of unusual swiftness of motion through which the depths of thought and expression may be discovered, their complexities unraveled.
''òwe l’ẹṣin òrò/ ti òrò bá sọnù/òwe la fií wáa'', the Yorùbá saying goes, ''when thought and expression go astray, we seek them out through òwe,'' imaginative expression that demonstrates the complexities and semantic range of discourse, illuminating, through suggestion, its contours and various angles through which it may be approached as an instantiation of the complexity of being actualized in human existence, as this expression may
be interpreted, in consonance with Rowland Abiodun's exploration of the scope of òrò, discourse, and òwe ,imaginative expression, in Yoruba Thought in Yoruba Art and Language : Seeking the African in African Art.
The assemblage always includes a dominant bird, spatially elevated above the others, or physically dominant, through larger size, or simply a lone bird.
Some interpretations of the birds as representing the evil activities of the mysterious and fearsome mothers depict the dominant bird as representing Ọsanyin.
Why represent the victorious fighter in the same way as those he is described as vanquishing and why are all the birds invariably sculpted in terms of an exquisitely lyrical beauty?
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 9
The following piece, by Jose Adario dos Santos, made in Bahia, Brazil, in 1968, as stated by Thompson (57) is
amazing for the particularly boldly minimalist beauty of its reworking of the motif of the birds surrounding
the central, elevated bird.
A cluster of spikes rises upwards, fanning out from a unifying base, the bird itself an elongation of one of those spikes, its body constructed as a re-modelling of the spike in an exquisite motion.
The Barakat Gallery notes on its Osanyin and Osun staffs in the section on Yoruba Staffs are particularly eloquent in presenting a perspective on this symbolism, as indicated by the following verbal collage by myself, slightly edited in combining some of these notes while retaining the precise vocabulary and expressive lyricism of the source texts:
The Opa Osanyin is a marvelous staff which serves as both a talisman, or protective charm, and as a symbol of authority. Within the context of pure abstraction or a blend of the abstract and the realistic, this creation in iron represents a veritable world of magical symbolism representing the material and supernatural realms.
The staff is used as a “weapon” or tool against the witches, symbolized on the staff by birds, powerful women who are able to transform their life force, their “heart/soul,” into bird form and travel through the night in search of victims, gathering at the tops of trees, from which vantage point they are able to swoop down upon unsuspecting victims and work their evil.
Since many illnesses are attributed to this cause, the diviner-herbalist is not only an expert in medicinal remedies, he is also capable of transforming himself into a bird in order to combat the witches on their own level.
This is represented by the small birds that encircle a large central bird.
The large bird is seen as the embodiment of the god Ifa, who assists in communicating between the divine and human realms and who possesses superiority of intellect over the smaller birds, the witches of the night.
The larger bird may also represent the diviner, an expert in herbs and medicinal plants who employs this skill in transforming himself into a bird for the passage into the nether world of spirits, even as the surrounding birds try to annihilate him with their fierce stares, as depicted by some versions of the staff.
The blacksmiths who make the staffs are often highly imaginative in depicting abstract representations of birds. Some of the birds reveal their identity, such as the delicate fan of the peacock, or the upturned tail of the duck. While others are the essence of pure abstraction, sublime and ingenious, as befits an object of power.
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 10
Delicately beautiful
The 'flock' congregating on the staff may be depicted in a state of 'energetic' repose, as if they are about to scatter into the night. Their sharp wings and tails, both menacing and very clever, in the way they give the impression of movement. The myth and magic embodied in the staffs is thus brought to life through their artistry, representing an enduring symbol of the fascinating Yoruba culture.
Varieties of Ọpa Ọsanyin Design, Technical Genius and Evocative Possibilities 11
Projected outward yet in constellation around an integrative centre, synthesis of stasis and motion, of imaginative recreation and imagined reality, the mystique of the avian mothers comes alive in this exquisite reconstruction of a flock of birds in coordinated flight from a tree's crest, an apex luminous with the glorious rhythm of a principal personage, neck curved in lyrical poise, like that of the other birds, ending in delicate beak, wings and tail feathers as if aflame with the flow of air within which they curve or stand pointed like the curve of scimitars.
The imaginative creativity and technical accomplishment of the Opa Osanyin blacksmiths, creating ever renewed poetry out of iron, is one of the world's great artistic wonders, as the same motifs yields ever innovative possibilities at their hands, through fire shaping recalcitrant metal, constructing forms yielding to their vision with the ease of words in the hands of great masters of shaping air into sound, of words into images and music that is verbal art.
The wonderful summit may be like the top of the trees where the witches perch, composed of inverted cones and stylized birds. The shapes may twist and turn elegantly and energetically around each other.
Fierce and beautiful
Climbing upwards towards them as it clings to the centre of the staff or positioned atop the staff may be seen a beautifully created chameleon. Chameleons are capable of quick changes of coloration to hide from predators, just as the diviner can change his appearance to deceive witches. The diviner, as chameleon, may be depicted halfway between the physical and non-physical worlds, represented by the upper and lower sections of the staff, with his back arched and head alert to danger.
The "crown" may be a delightful collection of shapes including inverted bells or cones, and stylized birds.
The concentric unity created by the smaller birds surrounding the larger bird gives the impression of continuous motion, of energy that is ceaseless and yet highly controlled. The large bird holds the balance together, perched on the slim staff which is both delicate and very strong at once. Unlike Western abstract art, this staff is imbued with meaning as part of an ancient culture, whose mysteries we may never completely understand.
The staff may represent special homage to two gods; Ogun, god of iron, and Osun [ Osanyin?], a spirit entity manifested in leaves and herbs. The former is aggressive; while the latter is more feminine, endowed with supernatural magic. These seemingly contradictory forces may be symbolically represented in these superb staffs. The proper use and knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants enables the diviner to cure, divine and also to battle witches while the distinctive shapes of bells or rods on some of the staffs emphasize the connection between the diviner and others who use iron tools.
As in one example, shown directly below, the cluster at the top may be formed of two pairs of rods on either side of a large flared inverted bell resulting in an obvious floral association, representing in highly abstract form the herbs and flowers used by the expert diviner in his medicinal preparations. The raison d'etre of what we see as a work of art, conceived as an indispensable instrument for use against the forces of evil for the purpose of helping others, gives the staff a meaning beyond its beauty, and allows the viewer to enter the mysterious world of Yoruba ritual magic.
Being both delicate and powerful at once, the strength of one example of such a staff lies in its exquisite form, rising like a great tree crowned by a bevy of beautiful birds symbolizing the witches who take an avian form at night.
The staff may rise upwards like a mystical flower, with one leaf extending from the lower portion. At the summit, could be seen a cluster of rods or inverted bells similar to certain tubular plants. These shapes, apart from their floral associations, emphasize the connection between the diviner and others who use iron tools. Thus we see the essences of two opposite elements of nature, hard iron and soft plant, combined in a single unit of perfect harmony and balance for use against the negative forces of the cosmos.
The beautiful grouping of bird and plant-like shapes on the top of one such staff combines pure abstraction and semi-realism in a dramatic visual depiction of the physical and non-physical worlds. The staff depicts the metamorphosis of the diviner who must be an expert in herbs and medicinal plants in order to transform himself into a bird to fight the witches on an equal level, as the vertical shaft shoots towards the sky suddenly turning into a lovely bird about to spread its wings. What was once made as an essential “tool” for a powerful diviner has become a work of art - continuing its tradition of transformation!
''The opa osanyin of medicine-workers displays birds that represent various potentially aggressive forces that humans must confront.
Generally short and often placed on altars for
other divinities, the staff recalls trees filled with birds, evoking the forest
as a source of sacred medicines. In the example pictured here, below the birds
is a stone encased in the iron shaft—a remarkable feat of forging. It is as if
the round stone becomes the head of a figure: the shaft can be seen to transform
into a medicine-worker who holds a fan in his right hand and a ^-shaped staff with twisted handle (or tongs?) in his left. He
wears crisscrossing sashes on his chest and a belt around his waist.''
By Henry John Drwal and Rowland Abiodun in "Ogun/Gu's Resonance in Yoruba, Edo and Fon Worlds," in Striking Iron:The Art of African Blacksmiths.ed Allen F. Roberts, Marla Berns and Tom Joyce. 2019. 278-301. 283.
The deity and diviner knew how to neutralize the witches' power and restore unity to the world. Hence, the symmetrical nature of the staffs, a veritable world of magical symbolism representing the natural and supernatural realms, material forms intended as a visual symbol of perfect balance and harmony, where good wins out over evil through the harmony of design and the power of the artist's intent.
The staffs appear as abstract works of art, a beautiful abstract creation which in fact they are, yet to the artist, they represent very real elements crucial to the diviner's success.
The sheer elegance of such a staff is as powerful as a great diviner's skill, condensed into a form of pure art and magic, occupying a space in time and place all its own, forever exuding mystery and an indefinable beauty.
Ideational and Structural Constellations of the Feminine Matrix
A more inclusive response to this symbolism would draw upon the full range of perspectives on these ideas in classical Yoruba culture. Building on the range of associations of bird imagery Yoruba culture, the birds of Opa Osanyin may be perceived terms of the use of birds in Yorùbá iconography to represent spiritual power.
In such contexts, the capacity for birds for flight may be seen as evocative of the mobility of a creative, cosmic force àse, described as emanating from Olodumare, creator and sustainer of the cosmos, and pervading existence, enabling being and becoming, existence and change, imbuing every existent with a unique creative capacity and particularly represented by women in their embodiment of the unity of the mysterious power of life and physical form constituted by the human body, as this fusion gestates in the womb.
This power is described as distilled in blood, and thereby concentrated in the blood of menopausal women, in place of the ability to bear children.
The power is also understood as capable of being mobilized to effect the movement of a person's spirit through physical and spiritual space in a manner akin to the flight of a bird as it rises above the gravitational pull that holds humans bound to Earth.
Opa Ọsanyin and the Symbolism of the Number Sixteen
Why are the birds sometimes sixteen in number, the primary number of the Yorùbá origin Ifa system of knowledge, the multiplication of 16 by itself giving the number 256, the number of the foundational manifestation of primary cosmological principles and organizational categories, Odu Ifa, in the Yorùbá origin Ifa system of knowledge which aspires to map all possibilities of being and becoming at the nexus of the individual will and the network of cosmic possibility?
Odu being understood as a primordial feminine divinity whose creative and destructive power, granted by Olodumare is represented by a bird, may the sixteen birds and their fewer correlates in various Ọpa Ọsanyin not evoke Odu, the feminine principle after which the odu ifa are named?
May the sixteen birds not suggest Odu and her primary sixteen manifestations or children, the Odu Ifa, as embodiments of the privileged feminine embodiment of àse, the spiritual power permeating the cosmos, yet unique to each entity, and particularly concentrated in women on account of their procreative capacities, as these ideas are understood in Yorùbá cosmology, a power suggested by the flight of birds as representative of the transcendence of laws of nature by access to this power, and evocative of the nature permeating and cosmos shaping power that is àse?
Would such a visual strategy not thereby proceed thereby, through structural symbolism in Ọpa Ọsanyin, to visualize the practical intimacy between Ọsanyin and Orunmila, a central male deity underlying Ifa, between the wisdom of plants and their use in Ifa, an intimacy dramatized in various mythic stories, as and depicts in Frisvold's Ifa A Forest as Mysteries and Mason Black Gods?
Odu, being the primal ancestress of the
feminine collective representing women's privileged embodiment of àse, Awon Iya
Wa, Our Mothers Arcane, also known as eleiye, Owners of Bird( Power) or Owners
or Embodiments of the Powers Symbolized by Birds, embodying the feminine
concentration of àse in terms of the spiritual correlates of the biological
potencies of women, may the sixteen birds not thereby suggest both Odu and her
primary sixteen manifestations as archetypal expressions of the mysterious
mothers, Awon Iya Wa?
Through such associative strategies, feminine potencies in the worlds of human biology and spirit are recognised as also extending to the world of nature Ọsanyin represents, unifying, within an associative matrix symbols that integrate the associations of the Awon Iya Wa with nature in the form of trees, their companions in spiritual existence, some trees, according to Osemwegie Ebohon, expert in the cognate Benin Edo spirituality, being capable of initiating a person into becoming azen, the Benin version of aje, an initiation representing a reworking of spiritual identity rather than a change of gender, the term ''iya' in Yorùbá , though rooted in the feminine, being also applicable to men who demonstrate certain positive though female identified qualities, as described by Adeyinka Bello.
Thus, Ọpa Ọsanyin may be understood as projecting the integration into the centre of Òrìsà cosmology a female centred conception embodying the paradoxical conception of women in classical Yorùbá thought in terms of embodiments of creative and destructive power, an ambivalence most virulent in ese ifa, Ifa stories while remaining a central source for accounts of the feminine as a divinely shaped archetypal category fundamental to the well being of the world, while Ogboni alone, among classical Yorùbá institutions known to me, centralizes the feminine as a spiritual power without this ambivalence, Ogboni metal sculpture evoking superbly the understanding of the feminine as a force both maternal and arcane, occult and nurturing, as I describe in, building on such works as
Ọsanyin, the human being, Odu and her
sixteen expressions as cosmological categories, cognitive matrices and
embodiments of feminine spiritual power may therefore be understood as
symbolically conjoined by Ọpa Ọsanyin in terms of the unity of nature and
spirit within the cosmic ambience represented by Olodumare.
Such a comprehensive interpretation of Ọpa Ọsanyin makes it a superb evocation of the Òrìsà cosmos, making the Ọpa Ọsanyin a cosmogram, a visual depiction of cosmos complementing the other better known cosmograms of Òrìsà tradition, the opon ifa, which evokes cosmic totality in terms of the integration of intersecting vertical and horizontal lines signifying the integration of material and spiritual space and time within the circle of eternity.
Invocation of Arcane Mothers
One may thus call upon this conclave, this deliberative assembly, this feminine collective representing women's privileged embodiment of àse:
Covens of occult deliberators, assemblies of the mysterious feminine ones, maternal and yet destructive, enigmatic and fearsome, available for invocation from within their alliance with powerful forces of the forest, wombs of possibility at one with the inscrutable core that is Olodumare, the calabash from which each moment is born, as described by Shloma Rosenberg...O mothers, dreaded and venerated, kind and cruel, intimate and inscrutable, we call upon you at this nexus of space and time...
Integrating these evocative values from within the Yoruba universe in relation to Ọpa Ọsanyin, this artistic form may thus be understood as a supreme cosmological construct, a visual projection of the Orisa cosmos.
This evocative range is realized through the central image of a pole unifying its character as metal and its association with the verticality of a tree.
These conjunctions are integrated by the source of metal in Earth and the roots of the tree in soil.
These terrestrial and chthonic associations are conjoined with the animate life of nature through the images of birds at rest on and in motion to and from trees.
These birds evoke the voice of nature and the mobility of the cosmic force that enables being and becoming.
The birds evoke its enablement of the laws of nature and means of transcending them, as suggested by the capacity of birds to move unemcumbered by gravity.
These avian personalities suggest the subsuming of these associations within the intersection of cosmic creativity and spatio-temporal possibility that is Odu Ifa in its sixteen primary identities.
The birds evoke matrices of insight into the intersections of dimensions, guides to the roots and possibilities of phenomena known as Odu Ifa.
The birds project expressions of Odu Ifa in terms of embodiments of the intersection of the mystery that is life and human form.
The avian personages may evoke feminine personas, the privileged identity carrying this manifestation of the mystery of life and human form.
The birds may thereby also suggest incidentally the male companion of the feminine personages, the inseminative counterpart who enables the feminine embodiment of this realisation of cosmic mystery that is the human being.
The birds may therefore evoke feminine personas, and by implication, their male companions, in the spirit of the Yoruba origin Ogboni esoteric order, which depicts Earth, the ultimate parent, in both female and male forms.
The birds may therefore be seen as suggesting Odu Ifa, understood as embodiments of the possibility of life represented by the human woman, her womb the calabash of totalistic possibility representing the union of earth and sky, matter and spirit, aye and orun, through which roams pervasive cosmic force.
This is a force enabling creation and destruction, good and evil, human categories that become reshaped within the cosmic gaze, from a perspective harmonising all possibilities in space and time, human and cosmic perspectives we struggle to understand and harmonize in the journey between the primal home beyond space and time and the home that is time and space.
The totalistic identity of this perceptual complex is Osanyin, embodiment of the spiritual and biological power of plants.
Osanyin may be seen as embodying the cosmos as perceived from within the humble presence and yet potent force of the universe of plants.
This value reaches from plants in living rooms from Buenos Aires to Ouagadougou to the depths of the remotest forest where live peoples yet uncontacted by the rest of humanity.
These range from Benghalensis, a small, inextirpable, trailing plant”, associated with the Ghanaian Akan and Gyaman Adinkra symbol Nyame Nwu Na M’awu, itself indicating the correlative undying nature of the Supreme and the human being, “Could Nyame [the Supreme Being] die, I would die.”
The proverb associated with Benghalensis is amplified by reference to a proverb from Twi, the central language of the Akan, “Onyankopon nkuni wo na odasani kum wo a,wunwu da", “Unless you die of Nyankapon [another name for the Supreme Being], let living man kill you, and you will not perish” ( J. B. Danquah, The Akan Concept of God).
These significances of plants are embodied in Fonio, as "understood by the Bambara and Dogon peoples of Mali [seeing it as] the smallest seed [which] fell to the earth and spread the consciousness of the creator to all [an] immense [value making ] it is at once both the smallest and the greatest.
In Fonio we hear the echoes of the past, and sitting in a field of these fragile plants listening to the wind it is truly possible to understand the spirituality of plants.
Fonio ‘is all the wisdoms’ for the Balanta Kanja people. It is the embodiment of the creative spirit, the giver of life, the gentleness of being, the entwined fragility of life and death, for it is a weak, easily broken plant, yet strong enough to bend in the wind without breaking” (Owen Burnham, African Wisdom: A Practical and Inspirational Guide, 2000, 43-44).
The terrestrial and cosmic significance of the plant world may be expressed in terms of an awareness of ''leaf
and bush and plant stem as individuals...part of every plant thing on this this
world...part of the earth and stone that is this planet...part of its brother
and sister planets...even all worlds [to] the stars, and beyond them more
stars, and beyond and beyond...to depths beyond depths, where the great
galaxies float like clouds or scatter like crowds...scattering from one common
point to the ultimate edges of time and distance [a] distance [in which]there
are many lives...in their birth and their growing.. chance or purpose
that makes a path for all life in time and space [ going] further and deeper, beyond all distance and imagination''(
''Twig,'' Gordon Dickson, In the Bone, 1987, 1-33, 8, 17, 28-9) to ''trees like towers in forests long ago,'' as J.R.R. Tolkien
describes this magical universe in the Silmarillion.
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