Osun is the Yoruba goddess of love, lust, fertility, fresh waters, women’s health, witches and wealth. Osun has been compared to and is sometimes thought of as the Yoruba representation or reincarnations of goddesses from other cultures such as Nekhbet, Sekhmet, the Chinese goddess Kuan Yin and Hindu goddess Laskhmi.
Each year a large festival is held in her honour in Osogbo which is located in South-western Nigeria. This festival is called the Osun Osogbo festival and is held by the people of Osogbo to renew ties between the town and the goddess. Several thousand people come to attend this festival bringing sacrifices and prayers in the hope that Osun will answer their prayers. One of the highlights of the Osun Osogbo festival is the arugbá, a votary maiden who must be born into a royal family. She serves as a mediator between the Osun people and the Osun deity. The arugbá each year carries on her head a large calabash filled with BRASS figures and other symbols of Osun in a procession from the King’s palace to the banks of the Osun river where all sacrifices are summarily dumped at the foot of a statue that represents Osun. The arugbá is always a woman and she must be a virgin (*rolls eyes* this is because she is supposed to serve as a ‘symbol of morality’: yeah we know the Yoruba had/have this obsession with female virginity).
-Anonymos
No comments:
Post a Comment