Name: African Pantheons and the Orishas: Crash Course World Mythology #11
Uploaded: 2022-06-26T00:02:25.000Z
Duration: 11 min 10 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

this is Crash Course Mythology, and today,

we're going to finish up our look at pantheons with African Gods.

Now some Crash Course fans are already scratching their heads because they know

that it's very hard to speak of African anything without drastically oversimplifying.

It's enormous and filled with diverse peoples.

Africa, as the saying goes, is not a country.

It is however a song by the 80s band, Toto.

*singing* "Bless the rains down in Africa"

There is no one African mythology or Pantheon,

just like there's no single Native American or Asian mythology.

There are similarities in the stories of different groups,

So this episode is going to focus on an African people with a well documented set of deities:

In particular, we're going to look at their pantheon of Orishas,

Yoruba is a language and a term used to describe the people who speak it.

Yoruba people live in the region around the Bite of Benin

in the countries that are now Benin, Togo, Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone.

and were also centres of the African slave trade,

meaning Yoruba traditions travelled from Africa to the Caribbean,

Some of these traditions have been modified and translated into the set of practises called Vodou in Haiti.

Vodun is a word in the Fon language that means "spirit".

Yoruba myths, however, are not the equivalent of Vodou

and most Vodou cults are actually a lot less intense than what you've seen in, like, horror movies and stuff.

The Yoruba region is currently home to many religions

and the fact that the Yoruba people have maintained their Orisha stories in the face of other religious traditions

is a testament to the power and importance of this cultural heritage.

The Orisha stories are similar in this way to the Native American myths.

Orishas are the gods and semi-divine heroes of Yoruba culture.

According to Alex Koko, "there are countless deities in the Yoruba pantheon of Orishas,

and each one of them, in one way or another, has accomplished deeds whereby the ancestors thought it was worthwhile

to include them in their oral traditions of story-telling,"

Out of the hundreds of Orishas there are a dozen or so that feature prominently in the myths,

First, there's Olorun, AKA Olodumare, sometimes hyphenated.

He's the Great Sky Father - hey, Dad! - and ultimately responsible for the creation of world order.

Then there's Eshu, the Trickster. He, like many tricksters, represents accident and the uncertainty of life.

We'll look at him more closely in a later episode.

Ogun is the Giver of Iron, who is also a hunter and a warrior.

Like in the Greek pantheon, not all gods pair monogamously.

Oranyiman, a son of Ogun is another warrior and also a fertility god of sorts, being the creator of dry land,

and the shaper of infants before their birth.

So, if you know someone having a sonogram, tell them about Oranyiman; that's his handiwork.

Olookun is the god or godess of oceans and Olosa is the goddess of lagoons,

so, I imagine there are some arguments over who has jurisdiction over inlets.

As with other pantheons, some Orishas have dominion over natural phenomena as well.

The Orisha thunder god is Shango, who is also the same as Oramfe.

Zeus, Thor and Shango should meet up sometime; I bet the conversation would be

Onile-Ile is the goddess of Earth's soil, and there's also Oko, the god of fields, farms and agriculture.

Oya is the goddess of winds and the Niger river.

Orungan is the god of air. He's the son of Aganju, god of the wilderness,

And it's not all positive phenomena either.

Obaluaye is the god of smallpox, disease and death,

You might have noticed that there is some overlap in divine responsibility.

When myths exist mostly in oral traditions and come from such a huge and diverse geographic region,

a certain amount of redundancy is pretty normal.

We saw this in the Egyptian pantheon too.

For instance: multiple Orishas are considered warrior gods

and others seem to control aspects of the human condition.

Ori is the god of individuality and fate,

A number of Orishas relate to regional geography like forests, particular rivers and hunting,

and some represent seemingly hyper-specific but key aspects of African life,

such as Ogiyan, the god of crushed Cassava.

Now that is a god who I bet is a real treat at a party.

And just for you history fans out there, this shows that not all Orishas have ancient origins;

Cassava was introduced to Africa as part of the Columbian exchange.

Other than Sky Dad Olorun, the most important Orisha is his oldest son Orunmila, the god of Wisdom and divination.

According to Leonard and McClune, "Orunmila, by reading pine nuts and cowries,

communicates Olorun's irreversible intentions and therefore, personifies fate."

So think of that the next time you're having pesto.

Many of the Orisha myths feature Orunmila, including the one that explains how the Orishas got their powers.

The Orishas lived on Earth, and before they each had unique powers, they were equals.

Whenever they needed some special knowledge, they would ask Olorun or Orunmila for help.

One day, and Orisha named Oko wondered why he should have to do that.

He thought that if he had a special knowledge of a certain thing, then people could ask him, and not have to hassle Orunmila.

So Oko asked Orunmila for special powers, to distinguish him from humans.

Ogun also asked Orunmila for special power,

Orunmila was distressed; he held all the Orishas in equal esteem.

He thought: "There are many powers to be shared. To whom should I give one power or another?"

One day he went for a walk and met Agemo, the chameleon,

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African Pantheons and the Orishas: Crash Course World Mythology #11

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