Baba Who? Babalú!

The COVID pandemic rages on. While the indicators suggest that we are all doing better at the basics of masking, hand washing, and physical  distancing , people are still falling ill. Many people have asked me about ceremonies and offerings to honor  Babalú-Ayé  and request protection and healing.    This simple ceremony is what I would call old-school. It is not flashy. It does not require a  lot of  people or animals. Rather, it is uses simple ingredients that please the  oricha , and it focuses on the most important ingredient of all—devotion.   Please note that this offering is primarily for those people who  Babalú-Ayé   Lucumí  and whose pots are not sealed.  Arará  vessels and those in some  Lucumí  lineages are sealed at the time of initiation. You can learn more about the different forms of  Babalú   here .    Go before your  Babalú-Ayé  and greet him. Say your  moyuba  to invoke the ancestors and the  orichas , and tell him why you have come.   In a basin, mix coconut water,

When Antolín Plá needed to make Babalú-Ayé in Miami in 1976, the community leaders turned to Josefina Beltrán and Romelio Pérez—Talabí. Beltrán had received Babalú-Ayé Arará and was one of the elders on the scene at the time. Pérez grew up across the street from the house of Armando Zulueta —Omí Toqué, and he had worked Babalú with Zulueta for many years. Beltrán maintained that there was no way to make Babalú-Ayé direct in the US at that point. Direct meant Arará , and it was simply impossible from her point of view. First, there were not enough Arará people to make it direct. Arará tradition said there had to be at least seven people with Babalú direct who were also possessed by the Old Man. There was also concern around the language of the invocation and the songs. Again, Arará tradition dictated that from the first prayer to the last song, the whole ceremony had to be in Arará language. To make matters worse, there were no obaces in Miami who had officiated in a direct Bab

After Pilar Fresneda—Asonsiperaco joined the ancestors in the early 1960s, the Havana Arará cabildo passed to Ofelia Calixta Martínez Bonilla, who led the community from her home in the Pogolotti neighborhood of Havana. She had been made to Mase or Ochún by La Chata--Onojome and Matilde Sotomayor--Asoinque, who also gave her Asojano-Alua.  Although Ofelia--Alidémi had Ochún made, her elders had given her permission to give Asojano-Arará--a novelty to the Sabalú in Matanzas. She also received Nanú from both the Arará and Lucumí lineages. Although Ofelia's son, Octavio Hernández-Martínez--Ogunda Meyi has no explanation for this intriguing fact, her daughter-in-law Olga says she always attended to them differently and according to the way she had been taught. Ofelia de Pogolotti maintained the traditions that Pilar had established. With her extended family, she "took out" the cabildo every year on December 16th, parading through the streets with its symbols: a white

The elders say that Babalú-Ayé can possess anyone, because he is compared to an ancestor, and anyone can get possessed by an ancestor. Similarly, they say it is because all human beings are subject to illness. So it is no surprise that many people seem to pass Babalú-Ayé or ancestral spirits who serve him. In fact, in Matanzas City, Chino Pérez is widely known as a horse of Babalú-Ayé, even though he is the keeper of the house of Ferminita Gómez, the home of one of the original Olocuns in Cuba. While he has received Babá’s fundamento , when last I visited him, he had not undergone the full initiation known as the asiento , nor was he inclined to. It seemed unnecessary as Babalú-Ayé came and went quite fluidly in possession, and he frequently did miraculous things when he did appear. In fact, when Saúl Fernández—Babá Ni Beleké made Lucumí Babalú-Ayé direct in Havana in the late 1990s, he called upon El Chino to create the secret that went inside. Justly or not, many people in Ara

I have written before about the road of Babalú-Ayé called Soyaya , who is strongly associated with Olocun, the oricha of the bottom of the sea. While these two share deep mysteries and untold wealth, I have wondered about their connection, and this week I think I understand it a bit better. Being in San Francisco for the Earth Medicine Alliance Conference , I decided to spend some time at UC Berkeley exploring the papers of the anthropologist William Bascom, who spent the summer of 1948 researching Africanisms in Jovellanos, Matanzas Province. He spent days discussing Lucumí and Arará traditions with the famous Esteban Baró, an African-born child of Ochumaré, the oricha of the rainbow, who is also known as Dan or Güeró. At some point, their conversation turned to Olocun, and Baró explained laconically, "Olocun is the Earth of the sea, oldest of all the orichas."

So I have set a new goal for myself: I have decided to rewrite the Wikipedia entry on Babalú-Ayé with the goal of making it more encompassing of the diversity of orisha religion's history and practice as well as rich in detail. I would love feedback on the proposed text. In the religious system of Orisha worship, Babalú-Ayé is the praise name of the spirit of the Earth and strongly associated with infectious disease, and healing. He is an Orisha, representing the Supreme God Olodumare on Earth. The name Babalú-Ayé translates as “Father, Lord of the Earth” (Idowu 1962:95) and points to the authority this orisha exercises on all things earthly, including the body, wealth, and physical possessions. In West Africa, he was strongly associated with epidemics of smallpox, but in the contemporary Americas, he is more commonly thought of as the patron of leprosy, influenza, and AIDS (Thompson 1993:216). Although strongly associated with illness and disease, Babalú-Ayé is also the deity t

Again and again, Babalú-Ayé appears in close association with dogs. But he is not alone, as other orichas also include these universal animals. We deliver scraps to the curbside after major ceremonial meals, where dogs feast, thus placating Echu so “he will give us food,” as an elderly priestess once explained to me. Ochosi, the hunter, also includes two small dogs in his tools, and Ogún is said to eat dog in Nigeria. I have even heard Cuban elders recount a ceremony no longer performed, where Erinle eats dog. The natural habits of the dog are instructive. Living in the house in close relationship with people, the dog always wants to go into the street. Beyond the street and into the forest, the dog senses what cannot be seen to chase down game or lead its owner back to town. Crossing domains and capable of great aggression when necessary, the dog also licks open wounds on itself and people around it. In many places, people believe that the saliva of dogs actually heals in some way

There are few specific stories about Nanú, but here are the ones I know. Among Yoruba- and Fon-speaking people in what is Benin, Nanú is thought of as the granddaughter of the Creator Goddess, Nana Burukú. In Arará-Sabalú communities in Cuba, Nana Burukú survives and is linked to the divinity known as Güeró. They in turn gave birth to the twins, Nanú and Dasoyí, the “father of the Babalú-Ayés.” These two met at the Agbogboji River in Benin and gave birth to the other roads of Babalú . (Below is a Sabalú vessel and já for Nana Burukú by Pedro Abreu.) Similarities in the names and iconography of Nanú and Nana Burukú have created confusion, and some people see them as the same divinity with different names. However, careful attention to their iconography and the ceremonies used to honor them show that they are really very different. Nanú is very much of the earth, while Nana Burukú is an ancient water deity. In most houses where Nanú is known, people give her white wine like Baba

Perhaps the most common ceremony for worshiping Babalú-Ayé is the awán . In the ceremony, a basket is lined with sack cloth with many plates of cut-up food encircling it. Some elders say 13 plates, some say 17, and some even say 77 plates must be present. After sunset, participants gather round the basket and taking handfuls of food from each plate into their closed hands, rub the food around their bodies to remove negativity or osobo. Each handful of food is cast into the basket, until everyone has cleansed themselves. People are also cleansed with a speckled rooster, a guinea hen, two eggs and the já, the ritual broom of Babalú. Different lineages finish the awán in different ways, but these things remain pretty stable wherever you go. Those who work the awán in the so-called Lucumí tradition follow the Arará-Dajomé lineage of Armando Zulueta. They place things at the bottom of the basket to begin. They crumble charcoal and add a peice of bread smeared with palm oil and t

Key to understanding Babalú-Ayé is the fact that he moves: he moves out of the land of the Lucumí and into the wilderness. He moves out of the wilderness and into the land of the Arará. He becomes king of a foreign land. More simply, he moves from well-being to destitution and back to well-being. In addition to moving physically from place to place, he moves people´s emotions with his suffering. It is impressive, unforgettable even, to see people imitating him in the caminata, as they drag themselves along the pavement. The sound alone sticks with you, but their bloody hands and knees remind you of the pain you have lived through. In Spanish, the verb conmover captures both this shared moving and being moved. Even in the ceremonies that the now-dead elders taught to the living, Babalú-Ayé moves. In many houses, he travels to the ceiba tree and then again to the cemetery, eating at each stop. He then travels to the family shrine for the dead--the egun--and again shares a meal w

There are many accounts explaining why Babalú-Ayé was exiled from the land of the Lucumí by the other orichas. In some versions, he spread disease after being mocked, and then Obatalá exiled him. In some, his exile is one of many tests sent by Olodumare, the Supreme God. But in one story, he could not contain his desire for sex. The story goes that Obatalá blessed Babalú-Ayé with peerless sexual prowess. He was a great lover, and all the women wanted him. In exchange for this gift, Obatalá only asked for one thing in return: Babalú was forbidden to have sex on Obatalá’s feast day. Well, after many years of observing this taboo, Babalú was consumed with desire for a new woman he had been seducing. She finally admitted that she wanted to hook up with Babalú, and she told him to come back the next day. Despite the fact that the next day was Obatalá’s festival, Babalú returned and lay with his new lover. When he left the tryst, he realized that his body was covered in sores. Babalú went

Ña Octavia Zulueta—Jundesi and her godson Armando remained close through the years. She admired his aché and his enthusiasm for the Babalú. One day Jundesi appeared at the family house on Calle Juan Domínguez in Percio. She said she had something to give him. She said she needed to plant the secret of San Lázaro in the backyard. She went to the back corner of the yard, next to the latrine. From a basket she pulled a long object that was the size and shape of a piece of yucca. She dug a shallow hole and half-buried the secret. On top she placed a coral stone. There it remains. Over the years, the family built a small house around the secret, and someone tried to protect it with a tin can. Every year, at the time of San Lázaro’s feast, they hold a big celebration that always includes feeding the secret of San Lázaro. As they feed Babalú-Ayé, they catch some of the blood in a gourd with white wine and rum. They pour this mixture over the secret. No one really knows what the secre

Perico, Matanzas Province In 1932 when Armando Zulueta was nine, he began to pass Babalú-Ayé. Again and again the oricha would take his body in possession, and so one day the African-born Ña Octavia Zulueta initiated him into the mysteries of Babalú-Ayé. Known as Jundesi in the religion, Ña Octavia said she was Arará-Dajomé, meaning her ancestors came from Dahomey in West Africa. In the ceremony, Ña Octavia gave Armando the spokesman and guardian, Afrá. She gave him an Osun with a rooster on top. She gave him a deep low-fired water pot with the sacred stones of Nanú, the mother of Babalú. “Nanú is the mother of Babalú-Aye,” they say in Perico, “and she lives at this side.” And she gave him a covered dish with the stones of Babalú-Ayé-Afrimaye, a specific manifestation of the oricha. She also gave him Babalú’s ritual broom—the já—with three times sixteen cowry shells on it. After that, Armando became famous for his knowledge of Babalú and his aché in possession: they say he could

There are many forms of Babalú-Ayé found in Cuba. Some are common and some are unique. Perhaps the best known forms are Babalú-Lucumí and Babalú-Arará, who is sometimes called Asojano. On the surface the distinctions are quite simple. The Lucumí form has its roots in people of Yoruba descent. It is unsealed and speaks through cowry shells. The Arará form has its roots in people of Dahomean descent. It is sealed and speaks through Ifá divination. If you look a little deeper, the distinctions become more complex. The Lucumí form is usually covered, but not always. It can have one stone or seven. It often carries a protective Osun, but not always. Sometimes it comes with the special Elegguá called Afrá, but not always. Sometimes it comes with Nanú, the mother of Babalú, but not always. In fact, there are a variety of ceremonies used to consecrate it. The most famous Lucumí lineage descends from Armando Zulueta—Omí Toké, but even that’s complicated. Armando’s favorite neice and goddaught

Pedro Abreu-Calvo—Asonyanye is the leading figure among the Arará-Sabalú in Havana these days. The Arará-Sabalú call their divinity of illness and healing Asojano. Initiated in 1992 in the Arará Cabildo in Matanzas City, he continues their tradition of making Asojano direct. He usually refers to Asojano as San Lázaro. When I asked why, he said it was a habit, a routine adopted from the people around him who use that name. He became very direct, “When I say San Lázaro, I mean Asojano.” When I received Asojano from Pedro in 2003, he insisted that I feed my Babalú-Ayé Lucumí with the newly born Asojano. He also told me that when people come to him and they already have Babalú-Ayé Lucumí, he always asks if the Asojano has the same road as Babalú-Ayé. So now I have a Babalú-Ayé and an Asojano, and they have the same road. He always insists that they eat together. Clearly they are not the same. Clearly they not entirely different either. Both Yoruba and Lucumí religion place a good deal