The Yoruba God of Drumming

Transatlantic Perspectives on the Wood That Talks

Amanda Villepastour

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781496818348
• eBook ISBN:
  9781496803504
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Ethnomusicology

As one of the salient forces in the ritual life of those who worship the pre-Christian and Muslim deities called orishas, the Yorùbá god of drumming, known as Àyàn in Africa and Añá in Cuba, is variously described as the orisha of drumming, the spirit of the wood, or the more obscure Yorùbá praise name AsòròIgi (Wood That Talks). With the growing global importance of orisha religion and music, the consequence of this deity's power for devotees continually reveals itself in new constellations of meaning as a sacred drum of Nigeria and Cuba finds new diasporas. Despite the growing volume of literature about the orishas, surprisingly little has been published about the ubiquitous Yorùbá music spirit. Yet wherever one hears drumming for the orishas, Àyàn or Añá is nearby. This groundbreaking collection addresses the gap in the research with contributions from a cross-section of prestigious musicians, scholars, and priests from Nigeria, the Americas, and Europe who have dedicated themselves to studying Yorùbá sacred drums and the god sealed within. As well as offering multidisciplinary scholarly insights from transatlantic researchers, the volume includes compelling first-hand accounts from drummer-priests who were themselves history-makers in Nigerian and Cuban diasporas in the United States, Venezuela, and Brazil. This collaboration between diverse scholars and practitioners constitutes an innovative approach, where differing registers of knowledge converge to portray the many faces and voices of a single god.

1

Awo Àyàn: Metaphysical Dimensions of the Òrìṣà of Drumming

Akínṣọlá A. Akìwọwọ and David Font-Navarrete

While increased scholarly attention has recently been focused on some musical dimensions of Àyàn drumming in West Africa and the Caribbean (where the same deity is known as Añá), this article explores and focuses on some metaphysical aspects of Àyàn.¹ We use the term metaphysics to mean the theoretical or first principles of things, including various abstract concepts such as being, knowing, and identity. Metaphysics are central to even the most basic understanding of Àyàn in social, musical, and spiritual terms. Specifically, we discuss: 1) Àyàn as an òrìṣà (deity), a deified ancestor, and a progenitor of an extended family; 2) some of the orature regarding the apotheosis of Àyàn and the process by which human beings become òrìṣà; 3) the family model in Àyàn devotion; and 4) some ways in which Àyàn interacts with drummers and listeners.²

We approach this article from a cooperative perspective, which is both Yorùbá and Lucumí, both “Old” World and “New,” and we assert a fundamental analogy between the Yorùbá Àyàn and the Lucumí Añá. Although this article focuses primarily on West African tradition, we use the designations “Àyàn” and “Añá” merely for the sake of clarity, maintaining that various forms of Àyàn and Añá worship across locales are part of a continuum of devotional strategies and modes. The strands of tradition woven together in this article are drawn from mythical, legendary, historical, and biographical sources, including our personal experiences.

This article is the product of intensive conversations between the authors—an elder grounded primarily in Yorùbá tradition and a junior grounded primarily in Lucumí tradition—over the course of several years. An ẹsẹ odù Ifá (sacred divination verse) from the divination sign

sá Ìrẹt

characterizes our collaborative approach to this article:³

Ọmọ dé gb n	Children possess wisdom
Àgbà gb n	Elders possess wisdom
Ni a fí dá Òtu If .	This principle was used to establish the city of If .^4

In this sense, our collaboration, which was based on cooperation and dialogue, is an attempt both to write about Àyàn and to embody the spirit of Àyàn. Our mutual intention is to offer our thoughts on some aspects of the awo (mystery) of Àyàn. Although awo can also be understood as “esoteric knowledge” or “initiate” (one who possesses esoteric knowledge), our focus on nuanced, metaphysical matters does not presume to make our subject less mysterious, much less offer the reader esoteric knowledge. Rather, our intention is to explore and share some essential, abstract concepts regarding Àyàn. Our individual contributions as authors reflect the respective stages in our lives (elder and youth), and the form and content of the article embodies a dynamic dialogue between us and our experiences.

It is also worth mentioning that the vast majority of Àyàn drummers in present-day West Africa are Muslims; consequently, many of them regard some spiritual aspects of their pre-Islamic tradition (and traditionalist òrìṣà worship as a whole) with varying degrees of uneasiness or skepticism. In a contemporary African context, the metaphysical dimensions of Àyàn described in this article can therefore be regarded as somewhat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface: A Drummer’s Tale: Àjàká of tà
• Introduction: Asr Igi (Wood that Talks)
• I. COSMOLOGIES
• 1: Awo Àyàn: Metaphysical Dimensions of the Òrìṣà of Drumming
• 2: Divining Àyàn: An Òrìṣà Priest from Ògbómṣ Speaks
• II. HISTORIES
• 3: My Life in the Bush of Drums: Àyàn in Ìjbu-Rmọ
• 4: Añá or Fundamento? The Sacred Iyesá Drums of Matanzas, Cuba
• III. GENDERS
• 5: Anthropomorphizing Àyàn in Transatlantic Gender Narratives
• 6: Ochún and Añá: Engendering Spiritual Power and Empowering Gendered Spirits
• IV. IDENTITIES
• 7: The Cuban Añá Fraternity: Strategies for Cohesion
• 8: Being Àyàn in a Modernizing Nigeria: A Multigenerational Perspective
• V. SECONDARY DIASPORAS
• 9: Añátivity: A Personal Account of the Early Batá Community in New York City
• 10: The Making of Añá in Venezuela
• 11: An Ogã Alabê’s Añá
• Glossary of Musical and Religious Terms
• About the Authors
• Index