Ẹbu Ìyá Mọòpó: The Chameleon Gate

The towering Chameleon gate protects the entrance to Ẹbu Ìyá Mọòpó - the Sacred Potter Field. (ẹbu = potter field, ìyá = mother, òpó = pillar or column)
This is where Ìyá Mọòpó, the goddess of all women’s professions resides.
The chameleon is celebrated in Yorùbá creation mythology as the first creature to step onto the earth with its extended tongue and tail holding up the new moon and the sun. The gate is designed so visitors must pass under the body of this primordial creature to enter and exit this sacred ground.
On either side of the gate are walls decorated with giant sculpted flowers that, in Susanne Wenger’s words: ‘the forms on both sides represent, flowerlike, the springtime of existence on Earth, beaten into self-expression under the impact of the Chameleon’s descent’. (A life with the Gods, Susanne Wenger/Gert Chesi, 1983, page 140)

As with most of the shrines and works of art in the Sacred Groves, the Chameleon gate and walls were created using cement, reinforced by iron rods and netting. To save money at the time earth was often used as a core building block and then covered with cement using only a few iron-reinforcement rods. Over time and under the influence of the tropical climate, the earthen core weakened and gradually they disintegrated.

In 2011 the Restoration Team restored the walls and gate under the guidance of Sangodare Ajala. One of the earliest members of the New Sacred Art Movement, Saka Aremu - now late, played an important role in this restoration, as did artists Adeyemi Oseni and Adebisi Nurudeen.