IGBA IWA : THE COSMIC GOURD WITH TWO HALVES

The popular Yoruba saying "Tako, tabo, ejiwapo" ("The male and female in togetherness"; Lawal 1995:45) is loaded with meaning. In addition to hinting at the life-producing potential of the couple--the source of the family--it recalls the Yoruba conceptualization of the cosmos as a "big gourd with two halves" (Igba nla meiji sbju de'ra won). (2) The top half signifies maleness as well as the sky/heaven--the realm of invisible spirits (Fig. 1). The bottom half represents femaleness and the primeval waters out of which the physical world was later created. A mysterious power called ase is thought to hold the gourd in space, enabling the sun and moon to shine, wind to blow, fire to burn, rain to fall, rivers to flow, and both living and nonliving things to exist. This power emanates from a Supreme Deity known (among other names) as Alase ('Owner of ase'), Olorun ('Lord of the Sky') and Olodumare (the 'Eternal One and Source of All That Exists').

the Yoruba once regarded Oduduwa as the Supreme Goddess, an embodiment of Heaven and Earth. According to J. Olumide Lucas, one of the pioneer scholars of Yoruba religion and himself a Yoruba elder:

In the early myths she [Oduduwa] is credited with the priority of
existence ... She is regarded as having independent existence, and
as co-eval with Olorun [aka Olodumare], the Supreme Deity with
whom she is associated in the work of creation ... Oduduwa is known
as Iya Agbe--'Mother of the Gourd' or 'Mother of the closed
calabash; She is [sometimes] represented in a sitting posture,
nursing a child. Hence prayers are often addressed to her by
would-be mothers (Lucas 1948:45).

D. Olarimiwa Epega, another Yoruba elder, makes a similar point: "Odudua is the Self-Existent Being who created existence. He is both male and female ... The word Olodumare is a praise title of Odudua" (1971:13-14). (3)

Other scholars have drawn attention to the appearance of the word odu (chief) in the names of Ol-odu-mare and Oduduwa, suggesting that both apparently refer to one and the same deity (Idowu 1994:22-7, 31-2; Bamgbose 1972/73:28-9). (4) Indeed, Olodumare is also known as Eleduwa, which recalls the duwa in Odu-duwa. Thus the narrative attributing the creation of the terrestrial world to Oduduwa may very well reflect a divine act of self-extension, identifying Olodumare as a sexually biune Supreme Deity. In other words, is Ile an alter ego of Olodumare?

In any event, the view held by some Yoruba informants that (a) Olodumare has a mother, (b) s/he embodies the male and the female principles of the cosmos, and (c) s/he may have something to do with a celestial python, has parallels among the Fon of the Republic of Benin, whose cosmology, many scholars believe, has been heavily influenced by that of their Yoruba neighbors (Maupoil 1943, Verger 1957). For example, the Fon conceptualize their Supreme Deity, Mawu-Lisa, as both male and female in essence. Its most sacred symbol is a closed calabash, like that of the Yoruba. The top half of the calabash symbolizes Lisa, the male Heaven, associated with day, heat, fire, fatherhood, and virility. The bottom half signifies Mawu, the female Earth, associated with night, coolness, water, fertility, motherhood, generosity, and nurture. Notwithstanding, the Fon often call the two aspects Mawu (Argyle 1966:179). As Melville and Frances Herskovits put it, Any discussion of the Great Gods with [the Fon] will make apparent

at once the importance of the Sky-God. When the ultimate control of
the Universe is referred to, Mawu is the god usually named. Yet when
one speaks to persons immediately connected with the Sky-God cult
.... the name given to this deity will be the
hyphenated one of the two
principal members of the Sky pantheon, Mawu-Lisa ... It is generally
held that Mawu whose domain is in the moon, is female, and that
Lisa, who rules the sun is male. Bur mythological accounts vary. One
version we collected tells that Mawu is androgynous and that Lisa
is the son of Mawu ... Another relates that Mawu and Lisa are two
beings in one, one-half a female whose eyes are the moon, the
other a
male whose eyes are the sun. This version, it is claimed, explains
the meaning of the word Mawu (body-divided; 1933:11).

Furthermore, certain Fon oral traditions identify Mawu-Lisa as the offspring of a Mother Goddess called Nana Buluku (Nana Buruku or Nana Bukuu in Yoruba) who derives much of her powers from a primordial python Dan or Dambala, who is associated with the rainbow, wealth, and dynamism. Usually signified by a coiled snake with its tail in its mouth to connote eternity, Dambala itself is believed to have two aspects: Dambala-Wedo (male) and AidoWedo (female). These parallels seem to increase the possibility that, before the impact of Islam and Christianity on Yoruba religion, Olodumare might have once had attributes similar in some respects to those of the Fon's Mawu, Mawu-Lisa, or Nana Buluku. (5)
Another equally popular Yoruba creation narrative identifies the top (male) half of the cosmic calabash/gourd (Igba Iwa) with Obatala, the creativity deity, and the bottom half with Oduduwa in her role as female Earth (Lucas 1948:95).

Apart from casting the two orisa in roles comparable to those of Olodumare and the Fon's Mawu-Lisa, this tradition makes Obatala the Supreme Deity, as implied in nicknames such as Orisa Nla ('Great Deity') and Alabalase ('The Wielder of Great ase'). Indeed, as Idowu points out, "he is called by some of Olodumare's significant appellations. For instance, he is called Atererekaye--'He who stretches over the whole extent of the earth'" (1994:70). Some stories even identify Obatala as the husband of the primordial python, mentioned earlier, that allegedly gave birth to Olodumare (Bascom 1980:212-15). And a number of scholars of Fon culture suspect that Mawu might derive from the Yoruba goddess Yeye Mowo, one of the wives of Obatala (Verger 1957:449, 552, Morton-Wil liams 1964:250 n.2, Bay 1998:95) whom some scholars identify as Oduduwa (Lucas 1948:96).

Oduduwa now has a double identity, being worshipped as a male deity in much of eastern Yorubaland, but as another aspect of Ile, female Earth, in the western part. Oddly enough, those who regard Oduduwa as a male orisa still occasionally address him as Iya Imole ('Mother of the Divinities'; Idowu 1994:22-5).

In sum, the metaphor of a cosmic gourd with male and female halves would seem to suggest that the Yoruba notion of a bipartite Supreme Being is much older than the current one that identifies Olodumare as a self-created Sky Father also called Olorun ('Lord of Heaven').

The divining tray on which the diviner fingerprints the odu has three basic forms: circular, semicircular, and square/rectangular. The most common, the circular tray, evokes Igba Iwa, the cosmic gourd. Human, animal, and mythological motifs carved in high relief frequently adorn the tray's border, leaving a recessed open space in the middle (Fig. 14) called aarin opon, the space for finger-printing the odu signs. That this recessed space is the intersection of heaven and earth and a stage for metaphysical theater is evident in the popular saying "Aarin opon niita Orun" ("The middle of the tray connects with heaven"; Abimbola 2000:177).

Babatunde Lawal, "Ejiwapo: the dialectics of twoness in Yoruba art and culture",African Arts, Spring, 2008.