I just got accredited for voting! I went to my polling place to get accredited to vote at noon here, so in just about an hour I’ll leave to do just that! I’m really looking forward to seeing how the whole process works and who gets the most votes (although I don’t think I’ll need to ask Ifa to know who will win). I chose Irosun Agbe for this post because there is one former senator here in Osun state who really did nothing but steal and has been paying people to vote for him, paying other people to intimidate other people into voting for him, and a bunch of other things too, but he was beaten very soundly last week by the opposition candidate. This is more or less what Ifa says will happen in that figure if you are greedy and have loose morals, a lesser known or smaller person will take your place even though you hold a higher position.
On a more personal note, I am very close to having everything I need for my book! This week I went to Osogbo a few times with Wale and also did some interviews here in Ife. I had a lot of fun with the Babalawo in Osogbo because whenever he would start telling stories from Ifa, he would ask me if I knew the Odu from which they came and almost every time I could tell him the answer. I found that even when I knew the Odu and the story as well, when he told it to me, it was always different from the one that I knew. This kind of confusion happened a lot in Ife, and one day in particular one woman told me that a woman named Moremi was married to another Yoruba mythic/historical figure named Oranmiyan and that she never had to sacrifice a child, and later on another priest told me that she didn’t marry Oranmiyan and that she did sacrifice her child. Both swore vehemently that if anyone says otherwise, (s)he is lying.
That has made figuring out which versions of stories to include a bit difficult, but it has made me pay more attention to the stories to try to understand them and their messages better since I believe these stories were mostly modeled on real events but created to convey a message or teach a more universal lesson or truth. I think next week if I have time I am going to try to sit down and try to piece together all of the stories and sort through all of the various versions I have heard, because honestly many of them are a bit of a jumble in my head! I also don’t want to just mix stories together because I think most of them are told in a certain (or divergent) ways because of the meanings that they carry, so I wouldn’t want to dilute, mix, or confuse any of the symbolism in them.
I have also come to realize that even if I stay here for another year, I will never be able to be able to write a completely comprehensive book on all of the Yoruba deities because the more I learn about these gods, the more gods I learn about! Also, even though many people may know about a certain deity, sometimes I have quite a bit of trouble finding anyone who can speak with a good level of certainty about him/her, how (s)he came to earth, how (s)he left, what (s)he did, etc.
The guy who has been taking me around to see all of these people, Wale, is a real character. Everywhere we go, there seems to be a woman who is upset with him, and his phone is always ringing because he has always promised someone that he would be somewhere an hour ago even though he might never actually get there. The other day we left the shrine of Oluorogbo in Ife (I never knew this, but apparently this deity created an indigenous form a writing a long time ago!) and right after the priest was trying to convince me to make a sacrifice and take a title from him, this woman ran up to the car and started yelling about how Wale hasn’t been calling her. Then the next day we drove past another one, and he kept getting calls from yet another one who was begging him to come to her house. He says women are going to kill him, and I think he could have a full-time job just trying to manage that aspect of his life. It all made me very glad that I haven’t let any of the women who have asked me to marry them get too close. Speaking of which, I had another record broken yesterday. I had a marriage proposal from a 50 or 60 something year old woman propose to me, which is definitely the oldest yet. Most of them usually aren’t much older than 35. At any rate, thanks to Wale, I know I am going to keep that part of my life under control!
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