Maternité oshe Shango, Yoruba, Région d'Oro, Nigeria

Acquis dans les années 1970
Collection privée, Belgique

Sao-Paulo, Parque Ibirapuera, Mostra do Redescobrimento. Arte Afro-Brasileira, 23 avril – 7 septembre 2000
Taïwan, National Museum of History,  Visions d'Afrique, 6 décembre 2003 - 22 février 2004

Mostra do Redescobrimento. Arte Afro-Brasileira, 2000, p. 79, n°53
Gao, Visions d'Afrique, 2003, p. 71-194, n°143

 

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"L'élégance de ce oshe Shango est saisissante" John Pemberton III

Chez les Yoruba du Sud-Ouest du Nigeria, Shango est une divinité – orisha – très largement célébrée. Au moment du festival annuel ou lors des prières et sacrifices hebdomadaires qui lui sont consacrés, les dévots saisissent le bâton oshe Shango et dansent en l'honneur de leur dieu.

[...] Les bâtons oshe Shango se caractérisent par leur dessin très spécifique. La plupart ont la forme d'une hache à deux têtes. Plusieurs représentent un personnage féminin – debout, agenouillé ou assis – surmonté de deux celts jaillissant du sommet de la tête [...]. Comme pour l'art rituel Yoruba en général, l'oshe Shango traduit la nature de la divinité et du dévot.

Dans les légendes Yoruba (itan), Shango est considéré comme le quatrième roi déifié de l'Empire d'Oyo. De très nombreux récits relatent ses succès de chef politique et militaire, et sa soif de pouvoir, dépassant les limites appropriées de l'autorité politique. [...]. Les mythes et les rites Shango, de même que l'imagerie des objets rituels, traduisent une profonde ambivalence quant à la nature de son pouvoir politique qui joue aussi de la psychologie pour exercer ascendance et manipulation sur les humains. Il doit être manipulé avec grand soin. Porter un tel pouvoir sur sa tête constitue une dramatique métaphore. Ori est le terme Yoruba désignant la tête. Ori ode fait référence à la tête physique (crâne), tandis qu'Ori-inu signifie la « tête intérieure », la destinée personnelle [...]. Pour les adeptes de Shango, c'est la destinée de chacun que s'investir de la charge du très grand pouvoir de Shango – ashe –, un pouvoir qui peut donner naissance et créer des empires, mais qui constamment souffre de la tentation de dépasser ses propres limites, et par là meme, de détruire ce qui a été créé.

L'élégance de ce oshe Shango est saisissante. Le personnage féminin est délicat et magnifiquement proportionné. Sa force est empreinte de grâce. De nombreux bâtons de danse Shango sont écrasés par la large paire de celts qui les domine, induisant la nécessité d'une force physique, agbara. Le sculpteur de ce oshe maîtrise parfaitement son sujet. Il a su faire la distinction entre la force de l'adepte de Shango et l'intériorité, oju-inu. Il l'a traduite dans la "conscience de son dessin" oju-ona, par cette très belle composition où s'équilibrent la référence au pouvoir de Shango sur la tête, et le corps aux formes superbes. Plus encore, tandis que ses mains soulignent ses hanches et que s'affirme sa poitrine généreuse, c'est le dessin de ses yeux, en forme de diamants émergeant d'un plan concave, qui nous conduisent à sa "tête intérieure", lieu de son pouvoir spirituel, de sa destinée personnelle en tant qu'adoratrice de Shango.

Philipp Allison, chercheur au Nigerian National Museum de Lagos dans le milieu des années 1960, laissa une note dans ses archives sur sa visite des villes Igbomina/Ekiti de la région d'Oro/Ijomu. Il y écrit ne jamais avoir vu de sculptures aussi extraordinairement abouties et d'une cohérence stylistique comparable à celle qu'il avait observée sur des autels de Shango dans la région d'Oro – en particulier à Ijomu et Omu Aran. Des nombreux oshe que j'ai pu voir provenant de cette région, au musée de Lagos ou dans des collections privées et publiques en Europe et aux États-Unis, celui-ci est l'un des plus beaux.

Commentaire de John Pemberton III, avril 2012
Crosby Professor of religion, Emeritus
Amherts College

 

Yoruba Oshe Shango from Oro Area, Nigeria

"The elegance of this oshe Shango immediately captures our attention." John Pemberton III

Among the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, Shango is a widely celebrated deity, orisha. At the time of the god's annual festival or when offering weekly prayers and sacrifices at a household shrine, devotees will grasp an oshe Shango, a dance wand for their Lord, and chant an oriki, a praise song, such as:

Oba Koso. I hope you awakened happily. Ooooo!
My Lord, save me from trouble. Oooo!
Did you awaken happily?
You have fire in your mouth, fire in your eyes,
and scorch the metal roof tops.

Shango dance wands are distinctive in their design. The vast majority have the shape of a double headed axe. Many appear to have two stone celts jutting from the head of the central figure depicted on the handle of the dance wand. The figure is usually a standing, kneeling, or seated female figure holding an offering bowl or the lead of a ram, Shango's favorite food. She will often have a child on her back or twin children, ibeji, standing at her side. She maybe lifting her breasts in a gesture of greeting or hold an oshe as a sign of her devotion. As in all Yoruba ritual art, an oshe Shango images the nature of the deity and of the devotee.

In Yoruba legends, itan, Shango is said to have been the fourth oba, ruler, of the Oyo Empire. The stories about him are legion. They focus upon his success as a political and military leader and yet his lust for power beyond the appropriate limits of political authority. In one story it is said that he was fascinated with magical powers and inadvertently created storms filled with terrifying thunder and lightning bringing ruin upon his palace, family and the houses of town's people. In shame, he left the capital city and committed suicide by hanging himself in a town called Koso. When the storms continued after his death, many of his former followers said that "the aba did not hang!" (A play on the tonal possibilities in the word koso) The oba had become an orisha and would hurl celts, edan ara, or "thunder bolts," upon those who did not honor him. Hence, in his oriki it is said that

When he enters the forest,
he strikes with his thunderbolts....
Shango kills without warning.
After eating with the elder of the compound,
Shango kills his child at the gate.
Shango is a troubled god, like a cloud fill of rain.

However, Shango gives his beauty to the woman with whom he sleeps. He is the patron andprotector of twins.

In Shango myths and rituals, and in the imagery of ritual artifacts a deeply felt ambivalence about power is articulated, not only political power, but the power or powers that play within the human psyche. Shango is a god who discloses a truth about the human condition that is not easily acknowledged, but that cannot be denied by the Yoruba. The female figure, balancing upon her head the twin celts, the signs of Shango's power, invites an analysis in terms of both the caprice and the creative experience of human sexuality. The power of Shango is a dangerous force, just as the libidinal drive may prove dangerous to the possibilities of creative sexual relationships or the arrogant use of military power to political leadership. The power of Shango must be carried with great care. Indeed, carrying such a power upon one's head is a dramatic metaphor. Ori is the Yoruba word for "head." Ori-ode refers to the physical head, the cranium. Ori-inu refers to one's "inner head,"one's "personal destiny," the character, iwa, of the life that one chose before passing the tree of forgetfulness upon entering the world of human experience, aiye. For the worshiper of Shango it is one's destiny to carry, to bear the burden of Shango's great power, ashe, a power that can give birth and create empires, but that constantly suffers the temptation to exceed its proper limits. And when it does so, it destroys that which it has created.

The elegance of this oshe Shango immediately captures our attention. The female figure is slight and beautifully proportioned. Her strength is found in her poise. Many Shango dance wands tend to be overwhelmed by large paired celts, conveying the need for physical strength, agbara. The carver of this oshe knows his subject. He discerns the Shango devotee's strength with a discerning eye, with insight, oju-inu; and he conveys this in his "design consciousness," oju-ona, in the superb composition in which he balances the reference to Shango's power on her head and her beautifully formed body. Furthermore, while her hands rest with ease upon her hips and her breasts are fully formed, it is in the design of the eyes, their diamond shapes projecting from concave surfaces that draw us into her "inner head," the locus of her spiritual power, her personal destiny as a devotee of orisha Shango.

Philip Allison, a researcher at the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos in the mid-fifties, left a note in the archives in which he wrote that upon visiting the Igbomina/Ekiti towns in the Oro/Ijomu area he had never seen so many extraordinarily fine carvings with a remarkable stylistic affinity as he had observed on shrines for Shango in Oro. He noted in particular Ijomu and Omu-Aran. Of the many oshe that I have seen from this area at the museum in Lagos and in public and private collections in Europe and the United States, this is one of the finest.

The brief passages of oriki are from much longer chants sung by Shango devotees in Ila-Orangun, Nigeria in 1977, 1981, 1984 which I recorded.

Commentary by John Pemberton III, Crosby Professor of Religion, Emeritus, Amherst College, April 2012