The noise grew in pitch, in rhythmic cadence. As I drove through an adjacent street to Gbodofon foyal, where Oranmiyan house dwarfed everything around, the crowd assemblage to illuminate the entire city that hosted the fleeing migrants following the fall of old Oyo Empire frenzied in excited gyration to different incursions of traditional rythms. From afar, my camera zoomed in on the Atupa Olojumerindinlogun. The 500-year-old sixteen-point lamp is claimed to give radiance to the entire conurbation – Osun is believed to be a sexy river goddess.
Stripped together by hunters, perpetually punished by famine in a nearby village – induced by the advancing Fulani Jihadists, Osogbo became the saving paradise for the Yorubaland. The present day Idi-Osun was known as Ode-Osogbo, where Larooye, one of the hunters that moved in their families built his palace and he was proclaimed as the first Ataoja. The early history of Osogbo is essentially the legendary account of the spirit-world; it is the history of the traditional humans whom we call the spirits and fairies. This is in line with Yoruba traditions, which use mythical stories to explain the origins of the ruling families of an early Yoruba state.
I struggled through the crowd, the sun was scorching. The adjoining roads to the grove were crowded. It was time for Osogbo people to re-enact their mystic bond with Osun – the river goddess that gives fertility and protection. A deeper look at the trooping crowd revealed a people whose soul was hungry for the invisible Osun, as if though, the goddess was missing. They kept moving, dancing, clapping, singing; expecting the god to speak with the full length of its mouth before they route for silence. The silver lining in the waters of uncertainties holding the future of Osogbo people pushed them ahead of the Gangan cadence.
The Iya Osun and the Olosun women were sweating in their white and blue apparels. The procession continued amidst fanfare, with Gangan drums dishing out the beat and Bata drums making intermittent rhythmic incursions. I held my camera to my side, twisting my legs to the Bata rhythm. Versus others, I was expending more energy; I soon got lost in the dance rituals, with my eyes blinking as if responding to the Gangan cadence.
The Osun forest was protected from the outside world by some spooky figurines lining the road down the coppice. The ambience inundated a visitor with an intimidating invocation. As the hysterical crowd were approaching the spirited orchard, the gates flung opened as if controlled by the numinous waft. The forest blinds bowed to this mystic breeze as they whoosh their swanky glooms. I suddenly stood still, starred at the statuettes for some seconds. The throng continued the procession until a mud gate beckoned. The crowd descended through the mud gate, down the gently steeping landscape kissing the Osun River.
The greenery fresh leaves, the whistling forests, the seemingly swampy terrace, made the landscape to play host to some meshed palm fronds and images of some deities. These metaphors possessed bulging and dragooning eyes that seemed to focus directly on anyone approaching.
Worn by the heavy weight of the sacrificial calabash, as well as the spiritual vituperations invoked on her, the votary maid sauntered along to the palace of Osun, just beside the river, whose waves swished the river banks, interspersing the river course and the network of expansive tree roots protecting the river from losing its glossy effect.
Carried away by my hallucinatory trips, I suddenly stood face to face with an Esogba man. He wore a scary face, adorned with slanting tribal marks and reddish eyeballs, held on tightly to his serrated staff. My perspiration resisted the cold ambience of the grove when I sighted him in a close range, smelling of repelling voodoo. Goose bumps took over my skin, for beads of sweat multiplied under my armpits, on my chest, under my temple and under my feet. The creases on my forehead moved in tempo with my palpitating heart. Then he beamed a smile and led me to the waiting crowd. I resurrected.
The sorcerous bond had been renewed, the crowd got frenzied once more. People trooped to the river to have their shares. Supplications, promises and resolutions were flying out. The seemingly missing goddess was back; the town had not been forgotten. People would flourish, the soil would multiply the roots of trees, peace would reign, animals would cry like animals, humans would cry like humans. Procreation would multiply with ease. The Ataoja would live longer, his crown would stay long on his head and he wouldn’t become shoeless.
Marked with low turn-out because of the dreaded EVD, Osun-Osogbo festival beams hope into the future, an assurance that not all our inheritances are tradable for civilisations.
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