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The Myth of Purity

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Religion in Africa and the Diaspora Summer/Autumn

2013
By Ayodeji Ogunnaike

BETWEEN THE 1930S AND 1960S,

sweeping conceptual and practical changes,
restructuring, and debates arose in the
Yoruba-derived traditions of Brazilian
Candomblé and Cuban Santería found in
the United States, which were all driven by
one concept: a return to a purely African
tradition. Curiously, this concern with
purity is largely absent in the practice of
Oriṣa worship in Yorubaland in
southwestern Nigeria, the site of the return
that purists advocate. An examination of
Yoruba proverbs, mythical narratives, and
ritual practices or discussion of other
aspects of Yoruba culture and religion
challenge and complicate the notion of
“purity” within a Yoruba context and the
recreation of Yoruba religious traditions in
the Americas.

From the 1930s through the 1950s, a

“serious internal debate among priests” of
the Brazilian Oriṣa tradition of Candomblé
emerged over the African “purity” of
various facets of their religion. In Brazil, the
Nagô/Quêto nation (or subdivision)—
though not particularly large numerically—
began to root out “Creole corruptions”1 and
to focus on “purely” Yoruba features,
launching a profitable trade in West African
spiritual goods. The movement had a
“transformative influence on the broader
Candomblé priesthood”; the Nagô/Quêto
nation grew from a “distant third” in terms
of numerical rank to a clear first; and its
emphasis on purity brought the issue to the
forefront of Candomblé’s practice and
representation.2

The most significant consequences of the

rise of the Nagô/Quêto nation and its
discourse of purity were: the increased
prevalence of the Yoruba Oriṣa
Ṣango/Xangô (because leaders drew on the
religious traditions of Ọyọ, where Ṣango is
the patron deity) and Oriṣanla/Oxalá
(adopted as a symbol of purity because of
his senior status in the Yoruba pantheon
and his association with the color white)
and the subsequent rejection of “Creole
corruptions,” such as worship of and spirit
possession by caboclos, native Brazilian
ancestral spirits. The caboclo spirits
represented a challenge to the theme of
purity, since they do not exist in
Yorubaland, are believed to be ancestors of
mixed European and native Brazilian
decent, and “embody little concern for
cultural and racial purity.”3

In the United States, the debate about

purity in Santería took place between the
Cuban practitioners and the African
Americans with whom they had begun to
share their tradition. A prime example is
the collaboration between the Cuban Cris
Oliana and the American Oseijeman
Adefunmi, who founded a Yoruba Temple
in New York. The two parted ways in 1964,
however, because Adefunmi thought the
Cubans were “remaining too Catholic in
their approach.”4 Adefunmi and other
African Americans did not support the
incorporation of Catholic elements (such as
the veneration of saints) that are deeply
ingrained in Santería,5 because of their
European origins, and the Cubans did not
approve of public displays of their religious
practices and festivals because of the
historical development of Santería as a
more closed and private tradition in Cuba.

Adefunmi’s “intention to purify the religion

of ‘Catholic/slave vestiges’ was central to
the project that became known as ‘Yoruba
reversionism,’ “6 and the culmination of this
movement was the foundation of Ọyọtunji
African Village in South Carolina, a
culturally Yoruba village that aspires to
return to a traditional Yoruba way of life
free of European influences. Ọyọtunji
literally means “Ọyọ rises again” (referring
to the Yoruba empire of Ọyọ). The
importance of purity for Ọyọtunji
practitioners has even led them to criticize
Yoruba practitioners in Nigeria for wearing
Western clothes, causing “a growing divide
in the Americas between people who align
themselves with Santería-Lukumi
traditions and those who align themselves
with Yorùbá traditionalists”—and even
between African American practitioners
and those in Nigeria—over the issue of
purity.7

In The Myth of the Eternal Return, Mircea

Eliade argues that, for traditional societies
(such as that that produced Yoruba
religion), the mythical time of the ancestors
should be understood not as a fixed period
in the linear, “profane” past, but rather as a
world of archetypes existing in a time
outside of (or before) time, or in a
primordial era that is constantly enacted
and recreated in a cyclical human time.
Given this framework, for practitioners of
Oriṣa traditions in the Americas, the sacred
origin and archetypes are removed in both
mythical time and space. Thus, Yorubaland
becomes a symbol of racial identity and a
physical sacred origin free from racial
oppression. Or, as Tracey Hucks puts it:
“Africa became for African Americans part
of a larger system of symbols involving
primordial origins,” moving the mythical
origin onto the physical plane.8 In Nigeria,
however, without the separation in space,
this idea of the primordial return largely
exists only in mythical time. With the
displacement of both heritage practitioners
and converts to the diaspora, having the
return to sacred archetypes take on more of
a horizontal (physical and profanely
temporal) than a vertical (primordial or
atemporal) dimension seems quite natural.

Discourses around purity relating to

Candomblé and Santería also reflect the
ideas found in Melville Herskovits’s Myth
of the Negro Past, published in 1941 during
the height of the purity movement in
Candomblé and just before the debates
between Cuban Santeros (practitioners of
Santería) and African Americans.
Herskovits asserts that Africans in the
Americas retained many “Africanisms” and
“survivals” in their new cultural contexts,
and his model fits in quite nicely with the
debates over African purity: in both cases,
the “Africanisms” that survived were sought
out by African Americans and the
Nagô/Quêto nation, and the features
deemed to have been corrupting or leading
the religious traditions to the other end of
the spectrum—such as Catholic saints in
Santería or caboclos in Candomblé—were
jettisoned.

The simple notion of “survivals” and

disappearances presents a rather static
representation of mutually exclusive forces,
leaving little room for the dynamic
interactions and varying syntheses of forces
that transcend retentions and erasures.
This is especially the case with Oriṣa
traditions: Catholic saints in Santería did
not eclipse Yoruba deities but were
integrated into an existing framework to
represent those deities in a more practical
way. The utilitarian focus of traditions such
as Yoruba religion in place of a focus on
orthopraxy resists binary categorization.

J. Lorand Matory notes that the Nagô

nation in Brazil and “Ọyọ religion diverge
strikingly around the theme of purity—a
theme virtually absent from Ọyọ ritual
rationales but pervasive in Candomblé talk
and practice.”9 This “New World” concept
of purity in Yoruba religions is challenged
by the marked lack of uniformity among the
Yoruba themselves. In Santería,
Ṣango/Changó is actually an amalgamation
of several deities from other areas in and
around Yorubaland,10 and the god
Oriṣanla/Oxalá carries slightly different
characteristics and names, including
Oriṣanla, Ọbatala, and Oriṣa Funfun,
depending on geographic location.

Beyond this diversity among the traditions

of the individual Oriṣa, even greater
divergences exist. Ifa narratives and
mythistory, central to conceptions of Oriṣa
worship and everyday practice, vary widely
from region to region, and this variation is
recognized and accepted by most babalawo,
or priests of Ifa. While researching the
interaction between Islam and traditional
Yoruba religion, I asked a babalawo what he
thought of other priests who practice Islam
alongside traditional religion. He replied
that it could not be done, but qualified his
answer by stating, “Here-o! I am not talking
of other areas.”11 Instead of one “pure” form
of Yoruba religion, I see multiple, often
related alternatives that have been
developed to serve local needs and to
provide a plurality of archetypes for future
employment.

In fact, many of the most common aspects

of Yoruba religion are not “purely” Yoruba
in origin. For example, many Yoruba,
including Ṣango’s priests among the Ọyọ,
believe that Ṣango was himself a Muslim
who came from Nupeland to the north!12
Not only is the most central deity in the
debates on purity for the Nagô/Quêto
nation and Ọyọtunji Village considered to
be something of a foreigner who practiced
another religious tradition, but his high
priests are proud of that fact. There is even
a particular divinatory sign in Ifa—Otura
Meji—that in many areas of Yorubaland
dictates that the client or someone in the
client’s family must become a Muslim, learn
to read and write Arabic, dress like a
Muslim, or be involved with Islam in some
other fashion.13

Islam does not have a monopoly on

heterogeneous aspects of Yoruba religion. A
babalawo in Modakeke (an ethnically Ọyọ
town) with whom I have worked extensively
asked me to bring him a large bottle of
American cologne the next time I visit
because of its powerful ritual effects. I have
also observed him using many traditionally
non-Yoruba items, such as gunpowder,
glass mirrors, and American currency, in
his practice. Even among the Ọyọ,
traditional Yoruba religion appears to have
made a practice of incorporating elements
from other traditions.

The best illustration of this dynamic may be

found within the Ifa literary corpus itself
(under Odu Okanran-Oturupọn), and again
deals with the introduction of Islam into
traditional life. In this story, a group of
Yoruba Muslims had to travel all the way to
heaven every year to sacrifice a ram to
Olodumare, the Supreme God. The trip
became more and more difficult, and many
died on the way, so the people were very
pleased when an Ifa priest told them
Olodumare would accept a sacrifice made
on earth instead. Since then, Muslims have
sacrificed a ram on earth during the Ileya
festival—known in other Muslim
communities as Eid al-Kabir.14

This story complicates the idea of purity in

several ways. First, it incorporates a
foreign, or non-Yoruba, tradition (that of
Islam). Second, through a paradigm I refer
to as comprehensive religion, it not only
accepts the practice of Islam alongside
traditional Yoruba religion, but it
encourages the seamless integration of the
two. Finally, the myth depicts a literal
change in the landscape, which requires an
adaptation in religious practice that is
endorsed by none other than the Supreme
God himself! If this mythical change in
landscape were to be applied to the changes
in the physical and cultural landscape of
transatlantic Oriṣa traditions, this section
of the Ifa corpus seems to condone new
interpretations of and adaptations to the
tradition and acceptance of elements that
might not be “purely” Yoruba.

This myth also emphasizes how efficacy

determines orthopraxy, and how these
acceptable practices are derived from
vertical precedents (those from sacred and
primordial time) as opposed to horizontal
ones (those from profane and worldly
time): the “purity,” or, more fittingly, the
efficacy of the Ileya festival is derived from
above and not from behind (the past). It
stands to reason, therefore, that there could
also be room for Catholic saints or caboclos,
even though they have no historical or
horizontal precedents. Still, this does not
mean that any innovation is pure or
legitimate.

Given the Yoruba belief that there are 201

gods (figuratively implying an infinite
number), and that each god governs certain
domains of life, if those domains were to
change or new domains were to come
about, it seems fitting that the existing gods
might undergo slight changes or new gods
emerge. Or, if the population of devotees
were to intermarry with others to a great
extent, the spirits of the ancestors would no
longer all be Yoruba (as in the case of
caboclos) and would need to be accounted
for in the cosmology.

Utility is valued so much more than

historical precedence that there is even a
Yoruba saying, Oriṣa ta kẹ kẹ kẹ, ti o gbọ, ta
gẹ, gẹ, gẹ, ti o gba, oju popo ni ngbe, which,
roughly translated, means, “If your god
doesn’t listen when you praise it, or doesn’t
help you when you worship it, get rid of it!”
For the tradition-alist Yoruba, if or when
something as central as a god is no longer
efficacious, it is simply to be discarded and
replaced by something else that is, no
matter how “pure” it might be. Examined in
this way, trying to rid an Oriṣa tradition of
syncretisms, mixings, or innovations
because of horizontal origins might not
actually lead to the reinstatement of a
“pure” Yoruba religion.

While I believe that the heterogeneous

nature of traditional Yoruba religion and its
emphasis on utility greatly outweigh issues
of horizontal orthopraxy, the issue of
efficacy also lends itself to a more vertical
type of orthopraxy. For example, there was
(and still is) a high demand among
practitioners in Brazil for items such as kola
nuts and soap made from specific medicinal
herbs, because there is no effective
substitute for them in specific rituals. Since
the time of the ancestors, the babalawo
have been memorizing verses from the
sacred Ifa corpus exactly as their masters
taught them, and they are always careful to
recite the appropriate phrases when making
sacrifices, because if the wrong words were
uttered, the whole ritual would be
compromised. The focus on certain forms
of orthopraxy does not preclude the
emergence of new efficacious rituals or
adaptations or substitutes for older ones.

A purist discourse that seeks a return to

Yoruba religion in its original state is
problematic for three main reasons. First,
there is so much diversity even within the
worship of specific Oriṣa themselves, not to
mention traditional Yoruba religion as a
whole, that one would invariably have to
choose and privilege one specific
interpretation and representation over
others. Second, many elements of Yoruba
religion as practiced in Yorubaland are not
natively Yoruba, as the foreign aspects of
Ṣango’s identity make evident. Third, the
tradition itself is inherently dynamic and
readily adopts new additions and
interpretations, provided they are
efficacious and have vertical or primordial
precedents. Thus, the emphasis that purist
discourses place squarely upon the concept
of historical and ethnic precedence and
purity might actually result in a rupture
with the original tradition in Nigeria rather
than with the continuity it seeks to
reinstate.

Both sides in the debate often stress certain

forms of “purity.” In the case of the conflict
between Cuban santeros and new African
American initiates, the Cubans sought a
continuation of their tradition as practiced
in Cuba, and the African Americans sought
a symbolic return to the tradition from
Nigeria. Adaptations such as removing
features drawn from the society of the
oppressor would, in my opinion, be just
that: adaptations. I believe it is important
to name them as such instead of identifying
them as a return or reversion. Such a
sudden ossification of a dynamic,
heterogeneous, and flexible tradition would
itself be a “striking divergence,” as Matory
puts it.15

As with the translation and recreation of all

religious traditions in a new setting, lines
must be drawn between adaptations and
complete departures. For transatlantic
Oriṣa traditions, these lines are perhaps
better drawn according to specific locations
in space and time and derived from vertical
rather than horizontal precedents. I would
like to challenge and complicate the idea of
Yoruba purity and purity in Yoruba religion
to propose a discourse that analyzes
particular situations and the subsequent
most appropriate interpretations of Oriṣa
traditions. Otherwise, a return to a “purely
authentic” form of Yoruba religion would
leave us with very little of a tradition at all.
 Notes:
1. Luis Nicolau Parés, “The Nagôization Process in Bahian Candomblé,” in The

Yoruba Diaspora in the Atlantic World, ed. Toyin Falola and Matt D. Childs

(Indiana University Press, 2004), 198, 191–192.

2. J. Lorand Matory, Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and

Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (Princeton University Press,

2005), 120, 121.

3. Ibid, 136.

4. For a full account of Adefunmi and Oliana’s collaboration and later split, see

Carl Monroe Hunt, Oyotunji Village: The Yoruba Movement in America

(University Press of America, 1979), 28.

5. Tracey E. Hucks, Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious

Nationalism (University of New Mexico Press, 2012), 151–152.

6. David H. Brown, Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-

Cuban Religion (University of Chicago Press, 2003), 279.

7. Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mapping Yorùbá Networks: Power and Agency in the

Making of Transnational Communities (Duke University Press, 2004), 14, 10.

8. Hucks, Yoruba Traditions, 94.

9. Matory, Black Atlantic Religion, 136.

10. Brown, Santería Enthroned, 116.

11. Ifasola Onifade, interview by author, Osogbo, June 14, 2009.

12. Matory, Black Atlantic Religion, 138.

13. Watch a recitation and interpretation of this verse at ask-

 dl.fas.harvard.edu/content/130-otura-meji.

14. Watch a recitation and interpretation of this verse at ask-

dl.fas.harvard.edu/content/812-kanran-tutu-oturup-n.

15. Matory, Black Atlantic Religion, 136.

Ayodeji Ogunnaike is a doctoral student in African studies and

religion at Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences whose
work focuses on Yoruba religious traditions, including Islam,
Christianity, and Oriṣa worship, with a particular focus on Ifa
divination.