Oshun- Yoruba GodDeity"Lady of the Sweet Waters"

The Sixteenth Orisha

When the orishas first descended to earth, Olodumare sent seventeen: sixteen male and Oshun, the only female among them. The male orishas excluded her from their councils and conducted their affairs as though she did not exist.

Everything failed. Crops would not grow. Rains would not fall. Children would not be conceived. The rivers dried and the land turned barren. Bewildered, the male orishas returned to Olodumare to report their failure. The supreme deity asked a single question: what had they done with Oshun?

They went back and acknowledged her. Immediately the rains fell, the rivers flowed, and life resumed.

Oshun and Ogun

When Ogun retreated to the forest after slaughtering his own worshippers in a drunken rage at Ire, the orishas were desperate. Without Ogun there was no iron, no tools, no civilization. They sent messenger after messenger to coax him out. The fierce warrior refused them all.

Then Oshun went to the forest's edge. She smeared honey on her skin and moved her body in a slow dance, singing at the boundary between civilization and the wilderness where Ogun had exiled himself. She did not argue or command. She danced, and sang, and let the honey drip. Ogun emerged from the trees inch by inch, drawn by a power he could not resist. Where every appeal to reason had failed, sweetness prevailed.

The Flight to Heaven

When the orishas needed to send an urgent message to Olodumare in the highest heaven, every attempt failed. The male orishas tried to fly there one by one, but the distance was too great and the heat of the sun too fierce. Each turned back, wings scorched.

Oshun transformed herself into a bird and flew alone toward the sun. Her feathers scorched and her skin burned black, but she did not turn back. She pressed through the searing heat until she reached Olodumare and delivered the prayers of the earth, and the supreme deity answered. The flight cost her dearly. In the Ifa corpus, this is why the vulture has bare, darkened skin: Oshun's sacrifice marked the bird forever.

The Goddess Who Gave Everything

A great famine came. Oshun had nothing to feed her children. She sold her gold and her brass, piece by piece, until she had nothing left but a simple white dress. She continued to dance and bring joy to those around her.

Oshun's priests and priestesses sometimes wear white instead of gold. They remember the time when the goddess gave everything she had and still danced.

Oshun and Divination

When Orunmila, the orisha of wisdom and divination, departed from earth for a time, Oshun preserved the knowledge of Ifá divination during his absence. She learned to cast the sixteen palm nuts and interpret the odu, the sacred verses that contain the accumulated wisdom of Yoruba civilization. She was the first woman to practice Ifá.

When Orunmila returned, he found that Oshun had not merely maintained Ifá but had practiced it with skill and devotion. He acknowledged her mastery and decreed that she would always hold a place in divination.

The Osun River

Oshun's dwelling is the Osun River in southwestern Nigeria, which flows through the city of Osogbo. The sacred grove along its banks has been a place of continuous worship for centuries, its dense forest sheltering shrines and sculptures dedicated to the goddess.

Every August the Osun-Osogbo Festival draws hundreds of thousands of devotees. At the festival's climax, the Arugba, a virgin priestess chosen from the royal family, carries a sealed calabash of offerings on her head from the palace to the river. The procession follows her through the streets of Osogbo in a great crowd, and when the calabash reaches the water, the community's prayers are delivered to Oshun directly.