Oduduwa

The orisha Odudua or Oduduwa has a complex history in Ifa theology that contains female and male conception of the orisha. There is some scholarship that suggests Oduduwa was originally [Page 474]venerated as a female orisha. E. Bolali Idowu takes this position given the goddess tradition in Yorubaland, and words found in existing liturgy even in Ilé-Ifè, the sacred city of Ifa, where the male-orisha tradition is strongest. He also stresses the fact that Oduduwa is clearly a female orisha in the city of Adó and elsewhere in Southwestern Yorubaland. In one narrative, she is the wife of Obatala, and together they represent the merger of Heaven (Obatala) and Earth (Oduduwa). Moreover, in this tradition, Oduduwa, as wife of Obatala, the principal male orisha, is the principal female orisha. She is also an orisha of love and the mother, with Obatala, of Yemonja (representing water) and Aganju (representing land).

Awo Awolalu states that the male orisha Oduduwa has two sources of origin. First, he is seen as a creating orisha who took the assignment Olodumare gave his senior brother Obatala to create the Earth when he failed to carry it out. According to Ifa theology, Oduduwa descended at Ilé-Ifè and poured divine sand in the primeval water below the heavens and the sand hardened and formed the Earth (He aye). However, Obatala did not take well Oduduwa's assuming of his mandate and challenged him. Olodumare settled the conflict by giving Obatala a commission to form the human body and afterward breathed into it the breath of life. The conflict between Oduduwa and Obatala is staged in a mock battle between adherents of both orisha annually during the Obatala festival at Ilé-Ifè.

The original inhabitants of Ifè, however, acknowledged and worshipped Obatala as the creator of Earth. But at an early time in Ifè's history, there appears to have been an invasion and conquest of Ilé-Ifè. This assumed dynastic change at Ilé-Ifè thus seems to also bring with it a religious change. For it seems that, subsequently, the conquerors supplanted the worship of Obatala with that of Oduduwa, the female orisha. Awolalu concludes that, after the conquering leaders died, his followers perhaps deified him and called him Oduduwa after the name of the female orisha whose worship he established at Ifè. Thus, he says, Oduduwa has two personalities: one as a primordial divine spirit and the other as a deified ancestor.

In the final analysis, Oduduwa emerged as having a male form. He is the ancestor who established the worship of Oduduwa and became the King of Ilé-Ifè, bearing the title, as Kola Abimbola points out, Olofin-Aye—Lawgiver (of the) world. But he is also the orisha who was commissioned by Olodumare to create the world, and, as has been noted, the ancestor and divinity seemed to have merged into the orisha worshipped now at Ifè and elsewhere. However, he is especially worshipped in Ifè where the Obadió, his high priest, resides and reigns. He remains there in Ifa tradition as divine ancestor and founding king, the symbol land foundation of Yoruba social and spiritual unity. In fact, the Yoruba considered themselves omo Oduduwa, offspring of Oduduwa. In the Odu Ifa (78:1), human beings in general are called omo Odùduwa, offspring of the Creator. For it says in closing, “Thus when the children of Oduduwa gather together, those chosen to bring good into the world are called human beings (eniyan), chosen ones.” Here both the role of Oduduwa as creator of the Earth and his role as divine father, orisha of the inhabitants of the Earth, are reaffirmed as central tenets of the Ifa tradition.

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