Oshún
The river Orisha of all the sweet things that make life worth living.
Oré yeyé ó!
The youngest of the Irunmole, the Orisha who came directly from Orun (Heaven), Oshún proves that those that are small are no less powerful and no less necessary to the world. Originally the Orisha of the Osun River in Yorubaland, to the Lucumí Oshún has become the Orisha of all rivers and “sweet waters” (fresh water). Though many are dazzled by her beauty, femininity, and the honey that is her favourite offering, Oshún is so much more than the coquette. Her stories show us a woman who, despite great adversity, always manages to find not just a way to survive but to thrive.
Just as the river may be calm one moment and turbulent the next, just as it can be a place of beauty some days and dangerously flood its banks on others, so too is Oshún. It is hard not to fall in love with her sweetness, though Oshún is also known to be fickle and turn on a dime. Hard to predict, she may cry in happiness and laugh in anger.
Oshún comes down in many roads - whether the young beauty who dances to the drums to drown out the sound of her cries, or the vulture who foresakes her own beauty to save the world - she is perhaps one of the most complicated and contradictory Orisha in the Lucumí religion. With Oshún and her children, things are rarely as they seem on the surface.
Oshún is an Orisha who enjoys all the finer things in life - sweet foods, drumming, dancing, gold and brass jewellery, and the blessing of children. One of Oshún’s most well known praise names is Iyalodé - Hispanicized in Cuba as Yalorde. This name calls back to her role as the head of the market women, a chieftancy title that reminds us that Oshún is the protector of all women. It also captures her relationship to commerce. She is a shrewd business woman, handling financial affairs not only of herself but of all the women who run the traditional markets in Yorubaland.
In one patakí sometimes attributed to Yemayá, it is Oshún who first divines with diloggún. Diloggún, the cowrie shell, was after all the traditional currency of the Yoruba before colonization by the Portuguese and British. In the myth remembered in Cuba, Oshún was at the time the wife of Orunmila - the deity of divination - who had to travel on business. While he was gone, his clients kept coming to the house, begging for help. Having served for many years as her husband’s apetebí - female ritual assistant - Oshún took sixteen of the money cowries the clients brought to her and began to divine Odú through them. When Orunmila returned, he caught her right as the Odú Eyila fell on the mat. He was horrified that his wife had taken over his business in his absence, but had to admit that she was doing a great job. In acknowledgement of her wisdom and prowess, he agreed with her that she could continue divining up to the Odú Eyila, but no further. The remaining four Odú would be his domain.
Maferefun Oshún!