This is the third and final set of interview questions between myself and Ócháni Lele, as part of his online book tour for Teachings of the Santería Gods. Rather than just focusing on him as a writer or his new book, this interviews covers something a little more general — the patakí themselves. I tried to keep my questions limited this time, so if there’s something you feel like I’ve left out, feel free to leave a comment for Ócháni Lele or myself.
Year-in-White: Every now and then I hear someone reference something from a patakí as if it was fact. I’ve noticed that not all stories are treated like this, though. Very few people will claim that some sort of magical five-toed chicken helped create the world, for instance. Are there certain stories that you feel are more fact than fiction or should they all be treated as just that – stories?
Ócháni Lele: That’s a good question, and my answer is “it depends.” There are many levels to our patakís, and those levels are constantly unfolding.
Like you, I find it troublesome that someone would believe a five-toed chicken came down from heaven on someone’s back and helped to create dry land, but these were creation stories conceived in a time when there was no real scientific knowledge. Ancient humans tried to wrap their minds around the concept of “where did this come from?” This creation patakís is one of the many stories that emerged. For patakís like that I think we need to look into the symbolism created. One could write papers on the symbols of our creation myths. The story itself is also meant to be entertaining, and I think it relays a lot of information about the natures of the orishas we worship, orishas who are central characters in that myth (such as Obatalá, Eshu, Orúnmila, Odua, Olokun, etc.). Personally I think that patakí, in our modern age, is meant to examine the spirituality behind creation; just as the science behind the creation of our world is vast, so are the spiritual concepts behind what happened. It also gives order to the emergence of those concepts. But that’s a subject one could write about for months and not exhaust.
A lot of our patakís are fictionalized accounts of actual historical figures. Many of the orishas (and the odu themselves) we worship were once living, breathing people – take Shangó for example. He was the fourth king of ancient Oyó. He was a descendant of Oduduwa, the progenitor of the Yoruba race so history tells us. Some of our stories tell us that not only did he have the blood of Oduduwa in his veins, but also his mother was an embodiment of an orisha, so he was twice blessed. The tales of his life live on in our odu; and over the centuries I’m sure other elements were added to those. So for stories like that we have fact and fiction merged to create a spiritually dynamic story that remembers not only the earthly Shangó but also the heavenly orisha; and we believe that they were one and the same. Who is to say they are not? And through those stories we learn of their spiritual natures.
There are stories about men and women who had problems and made (or did not make) ebó; and we remember the outcomes of that. Those form the basis of many ebós that we prescribe in divination. There are some stories that are pure history, such as the taming of horses to create the cavalry in ancient Oyó, or the introduction of various weapons among the nations. There are stories about the migrations of various city-states and villages, such as the five migrations of the holy city Ilé Ifé. There are stories about different kings (and queens) that became revered as specific roads of the orishas. Also, patakís about various avatars of the orishas are important because they help us trace the origin of that road, and the differences that existed among the different regions influencing the Lucumí faith. Some are important for no reason other than they give us spiritual reasons for many of our customs.
This question you asked is a huge one, and it’s one that needs to be addressed on a much larger scale. To make my answer simple – I think one has to approach each patakí differently and determine if it was meant to relay a moral, encapsulate history, teach us through symbol, or, simply, to entertain. Different patakís espouse one or more of these things to different degrees.
Year-in-White: The patakís evolve slowly over time as they are retold and revised over the generations. It seems like it’s important for the story-tellers to ensure that patakís remain culturally relevant. Are there any patakís that you feel are more behind-the-times than the rest?
Ócháni Lele: I don’t believe that the stories need to be changed to make them culturally relevant. They are stories from the past about the past; there is no need to “change” that. Their “behind the times” nature comes from the fact that they are stories of an earlier time. This was one of the major problems I had with my own retellings. For each character in each story, I tried to “develop” the character a bit without changing the pataki’s nature. That was difficult.
Take, for example, my chapter on Okana. One story I really love from that odu is the story titled, “Okana’s Seduction of Shangó.” In my own notes, I have that story recorded thus: Okana was a witch who desired Shangó more than anything. She met him while he was riding on his horse and she walking through town and fell hopelessly in love with him. She used her witchcraft and potions to try and seduce him. But Shangó had gone to his diviners and made ebó. His ebó was stronger than her witchcraft. When she met Shangó again, armed with her potion, it worked briefly before Shangó found the strength to tell her he would never be with a witch like her. But so caught up was she in her own magic that this crushed her, filled her with unfulfilled desires, and she turned her magic to evil things. Her unreturned lust for Shangó, and her use of magic against him, was the beginning of her destruction.
That, more or less, is how I was told the story by my godfather; and that is how I wrote it in my notes. It has the makings of a good short story; however, to write a short story there has to be more. So I focused on Okana’s desire and her use of magic. I focused on Shangó’s use of ebó with his diviners. And I created a scene that I think is relevant to the time in which the story was set to show how Okana was crushed. A brief narrative was fleshed out into a full short-story. That was difficult. Even more difficult – I had to do it in such a way that it followed the fragment I had without changing the plot a single bit. I wrote tons of drafts before I got it just right; and I went through this with each and every story I wrote.
Year-in-White: As more and more stories are shared either through printed works like your own or through digital versions online, what implications – both good and bad – do you think that has for the traditional stories that, historically, were only shared verbally from person to person?
Ócháni Lele: As the media through which our stories are shared changes, the presentation of the stories will change. What works as an oral rendition does not work as a printed rendition; and what works in the printed word will not work if our patakís are presented through visual media, such as plays or television or movies. Take the works of the Brothers Grimm, for instance. I grew up reading those. I had to hide the book under the covers at night and read with a flashlight because my mother believed the stories were too gruesome for a child; but read them I did. Later, when she gave me the Disney versions of those same stories, I was incredibly disappointed. They were nothing like the originals. And later, when Disney turned some of those into movies (oh . . . my . . . gosh . . . what they did to the little mermaid!) they were virtually unrecognizable. Hopefully, this won’t happen with our patakís. But chances are it will.
As more writers, authors, playwrights, and artists come into contact with our culture, we’ll need to keep in mind that while our stories are reaching a wider audience, not all versions or interpretations will be relevant to us as a religious body. In my work I tried very hard to stay true to the plots and characters of our patakís; and I worked hard to make the settings as relevant to our ancient culture as I could. And in my private notes, meant to be passed on to my godchildren and their spiritual descendants, I’ve tried to keep the original fragments on which my retellings are based in the body of my personal work so they can compare, contrast, and come up with their own opinions of the writings. I think that’s what everyone who reads works such as mine needs to do – employ dialogue about my work with their own elders about what they’ve read. If everyone does this, then the work I’ve done becomes a springboard for discussion and learning.
I think that’s the most important part of the work I’ve done and the work I’m doing: it’s educational. And the opportunities for this type of work are unlimited. We have so many talented writers among our ranks — hopefully some of those will do work similar to mine soon and add to our body of knowledge!
On behalf of this blog and its readers, I’d like to give a big, “Thank you!” to Ócháni Lele for taking the time to answer my questions and allow me to share it with everyone here.
Ócháni Lele’s book is available online at amazon.com. You can also find the other books he has written throughout his career as both a writer and a priest there. Click on the link below to find his latest book, Teachings of the Santería Gods, released on July 7, 2010.
