20 A Theory of the Tradition asthe drum bursts iti sid that many jigues dance. Es is also a highly accomplished dancer, a mask-in-motion, who sjfifies in 1al by his phellic dance of generation, of creation, of translation, ho, ultimstely, is the figue? ‘The jigue while there, inthe forest, was a monkey, the last monkey. and drowned » . to float today in the sleeping waters of legends ‘which cradled a whole race. Drowning, in Aicica Whga the slavers stole our pegfle, the trickster figure can >" Tegenés in which are in- origins, legends whose mean A Who, finally, isthe jigue? and both are doctors of same order, the herme~ neutical order. While we lack archy rized presence of the, fonkey in Cuban mythology, in fe commonly encounter Esu with his ¢ foal representations of Esu. As Albero de} fequently has a monkey . . . by his side.” If aracteristes of Esu, a6 derived from the Oriki ES eft his side at Havana and swam to New Orleans. The Signifying Mo remains as the trace of Esu, the sole survivor of a distupted partnership. th are tropes that serve as transferences in a system aware of the nature atari an is interpretation — a ‘What is the importance of these apparently related tvieksters and their ‘myths to literary criticism? Perhaps this will be clearer if we return briefly to Ifa divination snd to & fuller discussion of Esu's role. It is convenient to think onus as the text of divination, who gave to divination not only his name but the 256 Odi as well a5-the-thousands of puenis that cot prise these_Oau. /e, highly structured Body of “lyrical poetry: stands as the verbal, literary, oF textual analogue of 286 cryptograms that can be formed by the babaiawo as he manipulates the sixteen sacred palm nuts, This vast array of poetry exists asthe separate stanzas of one extensive text, which we might think of profitably asthe text of Ifa, Human beings con-A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Moskey 2 sult this text in attempts to decipher their destiny, or fete. What the supplicant hears read to him, in “the signature of Od,” is neither a literal revelation of his fate nor a set of commands that ean be put into practice to sppease, oF re- dress, the human being’s curse of the indeterminacy or uncertainty of fate Rather the supplicant-hears read by the babalawo a series of lyrical poems that are so metaphorical and so ambiguous that they may be clasfed as enig- ma es, which must be read or interpreted, but which, nevertheless, Fave no single determinate meaning. The suppican Te reaSer B61 were, ‘gust prods Meaning By slapping te ab lawo as he chants an ese, which jngome way srkes the supplicant a5 Being relevant (o his dilemma. Then, the babalawo interprets te poem for his client and prescribes tfe appropriate sacrifies. Fairly frequently, me cient cannot recogiize his situation in the ~Iretpliovieal language of the poet, despite the fat that Ha has inseribed he petson’s fate into the appropriate Odu, signified by the pateins formed by the palm nuts. guage. Although he allowed hi “Wradtfon, itis Esu who retains dominance over the act of interpretation pre- cisely because he signifies the very divinity of the figurative. For Ife, one’s sought meaning is patently obvious; it need only be read. Esa decodes the figures If Ife then, is our metaphor for the text itself, then Esu is our metaphor for the uncertainties of explication, for the open-endedness of every literary {Sic tesa sro cool Ev rues the proves of clon, Drocess that is never-ending, that is dominated by multiplicity. Esu is dis- course upon a text its the process of interpretation that he rules This is the message of his primal scene of instruction with his friend Ifa. If Esu stands for discourse upon a text, then his Pan-African kinsman, the Signifying Mon- key, stands for the rhetorical strategies of which each literary text consists. For the Signifying Monkey exists as the great trope of Afro-American dis- course, and the trope of tropes, his language of Signifyin(), is his verbal sign inthe Afco-American tradition oe i summarize the importance of these tricksles to theor s. First, they and the myths in which they are chasaetefs function sc. The figure of ile the figure of speak- is peculier fo the myth jon names the great op- ‘ng, of oral discourse densi sin Fhe Signifying Monkey. Here position ofits formaltiterary cs2 A Theory of the Tradition One of the most important functions Esu bears is that of uncertainty or indeterminacy. Yoruba mythology inscribes the concept of indeterminacy in the Esu myth commonly known as “The Two Friends.” This myth is prob- ably the most well known of the Esu canon, Indeed, it is one of the canonical narratives that survived the Middle Passage and is as familiar among the Yorube cukures of Brazil and Cuba as itis in Nigeria, As Ogundipe correctly concludes, “The conceptualization of Esu's presence as a dynamic principle and his representation as the principle of chance or uncertainty has endured in both the Old and New Worlds.” { "There are several variants of this Esu myth ofthe indeterminate, recorded. {rom Nigeria to Brazil and Cuba." Ogundipe’s version is a full one, revealing | the reading given the text by the babalawo's concluding verse: Everyene knows the story of the two friewus who were thwarted ia their friendship by Esu. They took vows of eternal friendship to one another,