KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Yeye Aina Olukay­o­de takes pride in call­ing her­self an Or­isha devo­tee. Very mind­ful of the stig­ma and myths as­so­ci­at­ed with the African-root­ed re­li­gion, which is prac­tised in T&T, she joined the faith in 1997.

“Dai­ly, I present my­self as an Or­isha devo­tee,” she said proud­ly. Point­ing to her gold­en head wrap and bead­ed jew­el­ry she added, “I don’t hide if I have to wear my head tie or my locks that they told me to wear; I wear them. I wear my elekes (bead­ed chains and wrist­bands) in pub­lic, I wear them to work; I don’t hide them un­der my clothes.”

Wip­ing the tears from her eyes, she added, “The on­ly rea­son I am able to stand here and speak is be­cause of the pow­er of the Or­isha in my life.” Olukay­o­de was first in­tro­duced to the Orişa at Egbe On­isin Ele­du­mare, which is an African spir­i­tu­al or­gan­i­sa­tion func­tion­ing in the coun­try since 1971.

“I am the on­ly pub­lic Or­isha devo­tee in my fam­i­ly, and my par­ents, grand­par­ents, knew what chal­lenges might be there,” she ex­plained. “They didn’t dis­suade me, but they were very cau­tious.”

She said chang­ing her name was one of her very first chal­lenges. “I am very proud to be born Rachelle Young, but the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­claim my name was one of the pub­lic state­ments of be­ing proud of who I am and know­ing my lega­cy and my pur­pose,” she said. “Peo­ple say, ‘O God, I can’t say that I go bite my tongue; you don’t have any­thing eas­i­er to say? Alyuh and alyuh Or­isha thing, alyuh African thing.’

“Oth­er than that, the clothes you wear, the beads, the head tie ... My chil­dren would have re­ceived their elekes and chil­dren would try to burst it. There were sit­u­a­tions where teach­ers would tell chil­dren they couldn’t wear it, where­as you would see mem­bers of the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty wear­ing their bands (Rak­sha).Peo­ple would wear their rosary (beads) in their clothes, and there is no chal­lenge with it. And it re­minds me of the sit­u­a­tion with the girl and the hi­jab. And even to wear your nat­ur­al hair is a chal­lenge in schools.”

The Or­isha priest­ess said she paid to change her name.

“It was tak­en by force; if you opened your mouth to say any African word, you would have lost your tongue,” she said. “Why should we pay to get our names back? No, that should be part of our repa­ra­tion trust. Just as we know to call it African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, well, give us our African names free.”

Olukay­o­de re­ceived Ifa at Irent’ Egbe Tem­ple, Ile Eko San­go Oşun Milosa. She was part of the sec­ond batch of devo­tees to be ini­ti­at­ed by a com­plete­ly lo­cal team led by Oloye Ifa­tayise Chief Alag­ba Erin Fo­la­mi, Yeye Olooya Iyun Iya­wo Omilade Popoola, and the Shrine Leader Iyalode/Iyamode Şan­gowu­mi Şan­go­da­sawande Jan­ice Pa­tri­cia Mc Cleod.

The Ifa sys­tem is a com­plex and an­cient div­ina­tion and re­li­gious prac­tice that has its roots in Yoru­ba mythol­o­gy and cul­ture and is deeply root­ed in Yoru­ba his­to­ry and mythol­o­gy. The re­li­gion and sys­tem have been mis­un­der­stood for many years.

“With ed­u­ca­tion, with growth, and with the work of our many an­ces­tors, that stereo­type has been changed. It has been bro­ken,” she added. “Or­isha devo­tees have said prayers to open Par­lia­ment, we have been in­vit­ed to an of­fi­cial func­tion. You can in­di­cate that you are Or­isha on the cen­sus. Cer­tain­ly, our Or­isha com­mu­ni­ty has grown, and there has been an of­fi­cial lev­el of ac­cep­tance.

“At the grass­roots lev­el, we still have some re­sis­tance from oth­er re­li­gions who still see us as the ‘obeah man’ as this Hol­ly­wood voodoo thing, but you can on­ly stone a man­go tree that has bear­ing fruit. And our Or­isha com­mu­ni­ty is bear­ing good fruit. Our chil­dren, our el­ders, are show­ing the pos­i­tive in­flu­ence of our African tra­di­tions.”

The proud moth­er of three young men, en­gaged to Dr Fa­wole Niger Lowhar, rem­i­nisced about the re­cent African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions. “There was an an­ces­tral night; it was very emo­tion­al for el­ders in the vil­lage who didn’t ex­pect to hear our tra­di­tion on stage,” she said. “To hear the Iba, to hear the Yoru­ba lan­guage, to hear about the cal­en­dar and bon­go. The bless­ing of the grounds.”

For her, Eman­ci­pa­tion means the free­dom to pur­sue the things that will give true lib­er­a­tion to African peo­ple.

“Whether it is in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, en­sur­ing there is the African her­itage class,” she said. “Eman­ci­pa­tion means that our peo­ple are con­fi­dent in their own tra­di­tions of em­pow­er­ment. It is so im­por­tant that our African spir­i­tu­al­i­ty is not for catch­ing men or killing peo­ple; it is for en­hanc­ing your­self, em­pow­er­ing your­self so that you can with­stand the va­garies of life.”

As for those who are still afraid of pub­lic­i­ty stat­ing they are Or­isha devo­tees. “We all want to earn a liv­ing, and some­times be­ing an Or­isha devo­tee means you are de­nied jobs, you are not pro­mot­ed, and your chil­dren may be stig­ma­tised at school,” she said. “If you have to present your­self as some­thing else for your sta­bil­i­ty, I will not hold that against you. Those of us who present our­selves as who we are are break­ing the bar­ri­ers. Even­tu­al­ly, more peo­ple would be com­fort­able in their own skin.” Olukay­o­de, who has been an ed­u­ca­tor for over 33 years, be­gan her teach­ing ca­reer at St Ur­su­la’s Girls’ An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School, where she taught for one year. She moved to Melville Memo­r­i­al Girls’ An­gli­can for a two-year stint be­fore go­ing to Val­sayn Teach­ers’ Col­lege for two years of study.

She spent 18 years at Barataria An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School, where she es­tab­lished a vi­brant 4-H Club, which is still func­tion­ing at the school. She is cur­rent­ly the vice prin­ci­pal (Ag) at San­ta Rosa Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.