Esu: The Misunderstood god of Yoruba Religion
Prof. Wole Soyinka shares about trickster, guardian, and divine messenger god in Yoruba religion
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The Most Maligned Deity
"There is one deity who needs reparations from the European World, especially the missionaries, it’s this poor man sitting here: Esu–the most maligned deity. Simply because these Christian missionaries, when they came, they needed the devil, a figure of the devil, to terrify...
Misunderstood god in Yoruba Religion
would-be converts that their soul is in peril and they needed an equivalent of Satan. They picked on Esu, and till today, even some of the most intelligent people, will tell you that the issue is the devil. Everything evil is heaped on Esu and it is wrong. Esu is, in fact, one of
The Yoruba god of Crossroads
the interpreters of Ifa, guarding the gateway to divination. He is also mischievous, by the way, that’s not to be denied. He is god of the crossroads, he confuses human beings sometimes, like some people do. He’s a dialectician. This is the dialectician of the Yoruba deities.
A Cautionary Figure
The one who says to even other deities: reality is deceptive, always looks beneath the surface, does not trust appearances. Esu is a cautionary figure and because he's so rascally that's why, in a festival, the first morsel is given to ESU. He's a prankster, he's not evil at all
Is one of the most blasphemous statements, about any deity, is by the missionaries in regard to Esu. This is why in the diaspora, in Brazil for instance, in which he’s been enthroned as the principal deity –which of course is false–and when I tell them that, they're surprised.
