American Voudou: Journey Into a Hidden World (34 page)

Read American Voudou: Journey Into a Hidden World Online

Authors: Rod Davis

Tags: #Body; Mind & Spirit, #General, #Religion, #Ethnic & Tribal, #Social Science, #Ethnic Studies, #African American Studies, #test

 

Page 223
will prosper." In that moment he was not a king, nor a babalawo. He was a father who knew his daughter had the blessings of fate to leave a home which would feel her absence in thousands of ways for thousands of days.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
The next morning I got up and waited for the roosters to arrive. It had been a busy week and village supplies were temporarily exhausted. Iya Orite had called the local farmer who brought in new livestock once or twice a week to request a special delivery. He was supposed to arrive by nine or ten in the morning, and we could go ahead. The king had to leave the village for the day, so if the roosters weren't there in time, she, as priestess of Obatala, would make the ebo. We would use the royal Elegba and Ogun altar in the small yard adjacent to her house.
Noon came and went. So did the king. No farmer, no roosters, no ebo. I couldn't believe it. How could it be so hard to find chickens in the middle of Southern farm country? I resigned myself to a day of waitingnot that it really mattered when I fed the orisha, or when I left the village, or when I got to the next place down the road. I didn't even wear a watch anymore. During the lull, I walked down to the dirt and grass-covered parking area outside the sentry gate and watched Chief Alagba trying to replace a universal joint under his old white station wagon. He lay in the dirt for hours, up to his elbows in grease, and never complained. He told me he'd been driving back from Beaufort when the joint started going out, and he had gotten all the way back to the village, just under the shade tree where it now sat all jacked up, before it completely clunked out. "God was with me or I wouldn't have made it this far," he said. I said it looked like god was with him and against him, all things considered.

 

Page 224
By mid-afternoon the chicken farmer still hadn't come. Tired, cranky and hot, I slumped deep into a chair outside The Horseman. To my surprise Iya Ghandi came up and said she'd take me to get the roosters I needed. If we left now we could be back in an hour or so. We took off at once, and after stopping at the gas station/mini-mart in Sheldon for a loaf of bread, vegetables and peppermints for her kidsfunny how my car always fit her needswe made good time on Highway 21. A few miles past Beaufort, Ghandi pointed out a plain looking ranch style house on the left side of the highway. I turned into the driveway and parked amid the tire ruts. I could see now what had been secluded by trees from the road: a kind of suburban livestock zoo. In the field behind the house, a trampled down area of old farm equipment, lumber and storage sheds, a fenced pen held both free-range stock and dozens of wire pens and crates filled with slaughter animals of all descriptions. I saw mostly chickenshundreds, perhapsbut also pigeons, guinea fowl, peacocks, geese, turkeys, pigs and goats.
Back among the pens a forty-ish white womanpetite, blonde, tough and sassyscattered feed. She greeted Iya Ghandi familiarly and introduced herself to me. When I marveled at the extent of the enterprise, she smiled proudly. Gray's Hill was a respected supplier of live poultry and livestock to numerous local butchers and retail stores. Villagers were regular clients, either in times of special needs or when the farmer who usually supplied them was late. I said that was pretty much our case. The woman looked at me quizzically at first, maybe because I was white. Then, suddenly, she got it. She knew why I was there. So what did we need today? Three roosters, said Iya Ghandi. No problem, said the woman.
She picked up her catching pole, a kind of broomstick handle with a net on the end. Roosters and pullets scurried so plentifully at our feet that it was no chore for her to trap one, two, three, just like that, scooping them up as though they were land-

 

Page 225
locked butterflies. I wondered, briefly, if fate also dictated which of the many young roosters were the ones that would be caught, or if it was just another exercise in survival of the quickest? Not that any of the chickens in this commercial lot faced the prospect of a long life. As the woman netted each bird, she gave it to me to hold. Then she put the catching pole aside and picked up some lengths of barn twine, with which she bound each bird's legs as I tried to keep the flapping and squawking to a minimum. "If you think this is rough, just wait," she said to the last one, cinching the knot above its claws.
I paid $22.50 for all three. The price was highdead and packaged in the store, poultry wouldn't fetch a third that muchbut I suppose the idea was that they weren't dead and packaged. Iya Ghandi warned me to put newspaper on the floor on the passenger side, where she would hold them, and we also covered their heads to keep them calm. Across the highway, three utility company linemen were watching us closely. As we drove off I could see them wisecrack to each other.
Back at the village, I walked down to Iya Orite's house and told her I'd been to Gray's. She was glad, and maybe a little surprised, that Ghandi had helped me. She said to give her an hour to prepare.
I went back to my hut to wait. I had plenty to do. I hadn't packed to leavenot really sure if I'd be staying another day or not, depending on whether the ebo got delayed. I threw my clothes into my flight bag, drained the melted ice and spilled orange juice from the Igloo cooler, pulled my striped towel off the nail in the wall, and stashed everything in the trunk of my GTI.
Then I looked for Chief Elesin, who had promised to make me an Ochosi figure. The king had recommended that I "feed" it with the blood of the roosters during my ebo. But I couldn't find Elesin. I did see the long-lost farmer, an elderly black man in straw hat and overalls, finally chug up in an old pickup carrying

 

Page 226
a few crates of chickens. Even though I'd finally supplied my own (the price deducted from the fee), Iya Orite gladly purchased what the farmer delivered. She'd have plenty of use for them.
1
Background on Ifa divination from the patient explanations of Oba Oseijeman Adefumni I of Oyotunji, and Chief A. J. Ajamu of Miami, as well as to two of William L. Bascom's authoritative accounts,
Ifa Divination: Gods and Men in West Africa
, 1969, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, and
Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination, Africa to the New World
, 1980, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. I have also drawn from conversations with Dr. Afolabi A. Epega of the Bronx, and his book
Ifa: The Ancient Wisdom
, 1987, Imole Oluwa Institute, New York.
2
The odu known as Irete Fu, for example, would look like this:
II
I
I
I
II
II
I
I
Deciphering the odu means unlocking the sequence of the casting. Though it appears complicated, the procedure is relatively simple once you grasp the basic rules. The first is to read everything backwards. To read the odu Irete Fu, start with the top figure in the
right
column, then move horizontally across the top figure in the
left
column, and so on down for each row.
Each of the eight marks in the columns is an indication of how many nuts were left behind, or with the opele, how many were face up or down. The methodology derives from the older ikin method. When the babalawo throws the eight nuts onto a sacred mat, he can only use his left hand to scoop them up. But he can't hold them all (or so tradition dictates) in his fist, and either one or two are left behind. Three or more disqualifies the throw.
After each throw, the babalawo indicates in the dirt, or these days on paper, whether one or two nuts remained. He does this eight times, marking the results in two columns of four rows each. But reversed.
Thus, a double mark (II) indicates a single nut, while a single mark (I) indicates two remaining nuts. That meansreading the top row, right to leftthat on his first throw, the babalawo left two nuts behind, then one on his second. And so on.

Other books

Hoax by Felix, Lila
The Railroad by Neil Douglas Newton
Gai-Jin by James Clavell
The Hot Girl's Friend by Lisa Scott
In the House of the Interpreter by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o
Believed (My Misery Muse) by Betzold, Brei
Down With the Royals by Joan Smith
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino