the Moon
In the early 1980s I received, as part of a beautiful ceremony at my home in Oakland, California, a sacred vessel (an Ikoko Olokun) for the spirit of the power at the bottom of the Ocean. The ceremony consisted of gathering all the gifts of the Ocean, such as fish, seashells, seaweed, and sand, as well as many gifts of the Earth, such as grains, fruits, vegetables, spices, meat, oil, and eggs. These Ocean gifts and Earth gifts were placed on plates and, intermingled with blue and white candles, lined both sides of a long palm mat. We said prayers of thanksgiving, played drums, sang, and danced while passing the contents of these plates over our heads and around our bodies. We made a commitment to feed the hungry and give all these things back to the Ocean and the Earth at the ceremony's end.
The elders explained to me that there were “greater secrets” to this Ocean ceremony than what I had witnessed and experienced, but they had been lost during the slave period. They also told me that in the Caribbean Islands (Cuba and Puerto Rico, but not Haiti), this force was considered “too powerful” to be fully ritualized, and, consequently, initiation ceremonies on the islands were not performed for people who dedicated themselves to this layer of the Ocean.
Nobody knows what's at the bottom of the Ocean!
—Yoruba proverb, The Holy Odun Irosun
Nine years later I attended an initiation for Olokun in Benin City, Nigeria, where the ritual has remained intact for centuries. The Moonlight ceremony was an event I shall never forget.
The initiate was a man of Latin American descent and a member of my small travel party of five people. The five of us had had high adventure from the moment our plane landed in West Africa. In Dakar, the capital of Senegal, we were met at the airport by lepers—mostly children—who made their living by begging. We survived a taxi ride that resembled a chase scene from an Indiana Jones movie. And, at the hotel, we were greeted by a vulture that took a nosedive into the windowpane of my hotel room. A few days later, after having settled in and then gone lusting after fabric in the Gambia (as part of my travel ritual of purchasing cloth from the countries I visit), we managed to fly across Ghana to Nigeria, eventually arriving in Benin City.
Before this trip, I imagined my part in the proceedings to be that of a mere “go-for.” My intention was to deposit the members of my travel party—a daughter of the River at Oshogbo, a son of the thunder in Oyo, a diviner of destiny in Ode Remo, and a child of the deep—at their respective ritual sites, and then I'd go-for food, go-for cloth, and go-for items of personal necessity. I intended to support the others, but I did not intend to participate in any of the rituals myself.
In Benin City, this man of Latin American descent went through the full initiation for Olokun, which consisted of many things yet unknown to me. But, at his request, I was allowed to visit him at the end of his fourteen days of solitude. The officiating priestess housed the initiate in a small room with a floor of pounded earth covered with palm mats. The mats were covered with immaculate white cloth. During my visit, the initiate was covered in efun (white chalk) from head to toe—including his eyeballs! He was unfocused, spoke slowly, and said he had been dreaming nonstop for an eternity (although in actuality his nonstop dreaming lasted seven of the fourteen days).
I sat quietly and listened to him talk about his dreams—dreams of being in the Ocean and on the bottom of the Ocean. He spoke of scales, gills, and fins, of movement and colors, and of the smell of salt. I painted pictures in my mind as he spoke. After I had been there awhile, I sneezed. A priestess entered the room carrying a broom made of an herb (I think it was SeaGrape). She promptly cleaned the initiate by sweeping the area around his head and down the outline of his body. Then she swept the corners and the center of the room and threw the broom out the back door of the little room. She informed me that my visit was over, but she invited me to attend the drumming ceremony that was to take place outside the next night.
I arrived at the drumming ceremony late in the evening, my head was covered in a gele, a wrap made of white eyelet. I wore the traditional regalia for such a ceremony: white shoes, white dress, white purse. My driver proudly led me to a seat of honor that had been reserved for me. I sat quietly, determined to observe and remember every aspect of the ceremony.
The ritual participants began to gather. As I recall, four drummers came carrying small tub-like drums similar to the East Indian tabla but producing a distinctly different sound. The drummers were followed by at least thirty shekere (hollowed-out gourds decorated with beads) players—all women—who began immediately to make rushing sounds like the hum of the Ocean with their instruments. The congregation, a cast of hundreds, made a circle around a swept-dirt center. Everyone's body had been painted with white chalk.
After about half an hour, a priestess entered and blew white powder around the circle. She raised her arms as if lifting weights, then pulled them down sharply and leaned left and right as part of the invocation to the four directions. She was establishing the boundaries of sacred space. Once they were established, she let out a high-pitched call, and a procession began. The priestesses who had officiated over the initiation led the procession. They were dressed in red and white garments and hundreds of cowrie shells, the symbols of wealth. Instruments of divination were sewn on their clothes. The initiate was finely dressed in white cloth, and he walked unsteadily in the middle of the procession. The drums started, and the women began to display the initiate and to teach him to dance. I tried to watch the steps.
Eventually, the first priestess walked over to me and blew a handful of white powder directly into my face. Unwillingly I began to tremble from the inside and tears rolled down my cheeks. I became aware of my driver tugging at my purse and shoes. “You must go and dance,” he said. I shook my head no in an attempt to clear my blurring vision. “Yes,” my driver said, “this thing is happening to you, and you must go and dance now.” I wanted to sit and observe, but the priestess returned and blew another handful of powder into my face. Then I whitened out (the opposite of blacking out, I suppose).
I remember a resounding cry and a bolt of energy as if lightning had struck me in my spine. I still have no memory of moving from point A to point B, only of being there in the center of the circle, feeling my legs moving beneath me and my chest and hips gyrating. I heard my own voice above my head ask, “Who is that dancing?” I lifted my eyes to the night sky, then I saw and felt the Full Moon descending into my mouth, squeezing itself down my throat and into my belly.
I became aware that I had been moved to an inner chamber, a place where life-sized figures made of white chalk were somehow painted or inlaid with gold. I looked around, trying to identify the sculptures. I recognized Shango, the God of Thunder, in male and female form, erect and pregnant. Before I could see much more the priestess grabbed my face and pushed my lips forward into a “fish mouth.” I knew what this meant, as this is the way I'd been taught to give medicine to babies. With my lips pursed in this manner it was almost impossible to reject the substance now being poured down my throat. Oh, but I tried. Water and leaves, little seashells and grit found their way into my belly.
Then they removed my gele, and again there was a great cry. They called the name of the Thunder deity, because a few days before the women of a distant village had braided my hair in the style worn by devotees of Shango (He is my Father, by the way). I was washed from head to toe; they then smeared me with chalk and drew lines on my face and body. My crisp white eyelet clothing was now streaked with chalk and bits of green leaves. As I looked around me, people moved in the dark, their black faces covered in white chalk, their eyes fully opened, staring at me. I felt as if I were in a Fellini movie or a painted mime drama, and these people seemed to be hovering somewhere between the worlds.
Then the priestesses began making predictions for me. Some of them were worrisome, some of them wonderful. All have proved to be true.
