3 - Ambivalence and Transgression in the Practice of Ṣàngó

Summary

This chapter explores the ambivalent role of Ṣàngó in Ede by focusing on the deity's association with the transgression of boundaries in different contexts. Connected with the foundation of the town, Ṣàngó was always an important historical and civic power in Ede, but with Tìmì Bamigbaye Ṣàngó also became closely identified with Ede's ruler (chapter 2). This association has continued to this day because the successive ọbas of a town are seen as one persona, each individual a continuation of his predecessors. As a result, Ede's Tìmìs are understood as having greater powers than ordinary mortals because they are ọbas and thus imbued with the spiritual power that derives from the history and community of the town. In this capacity, they act as the heads, or patrons, of all religions practised within the town. However, the Tìmìs also represent Ṣàngó, a transgressive deity in his own right.

Focusing on Ṣàngó's association with contradictory, ambivalent and transgressive positions in Ede, the chapter understands transgression as a site and a strategy of power and domination, on the part of both Ṣàngó and the Tìmì. It therefore highlights forms of religious encounter and engagement that challenge notions of tolerance as the only form of peaceful or productive religious coexistence. By examining transgression in the context of royal agency, the chapter also engages with Jacob Olupona's argument, based on his study of ọbaship in Ondo, that ‘the king's role as the patron of all the town's gods and religions forges the cults of these separate religious groups into a unified civil religion’, which however draws on and embraces traditional practices – such as widespread historical understandings of the ruler as the head of all religions (chapter 1).

Building on and qualifying Olupona's work, this chapter argues that in Ede ọbaship is associated both with the civic practice of multiple religious participation, which represents all religions as equally valid in their own context and, inspired by the character of Ṣàngó, with the charismatic transgression of the boundaries that separate different religions. As practices and strategies of power, both multiple religious participation and charismatic transgression reveal religious boundaries as more ambivalent than implied in the concept of tolerance.