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Chapter 9 “The Sea Never Dies”: Yemoja
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Chapter 9 “The Sea Never Dies”: Yemoja: The Infinitely Flowing Mother Force of Africana Literature and Cinema Teresa N. Washington The most versatile element, the elemental force, the essential source of all life is water, and the Mother of all of the waters of this world is Yemoja. So important a God is she, Yemoja boasts the oríkì Yewájobí, which means Mother of All of the Gods and of All Living Things.1 There are no Gods without the Mother. There is no life without the Mother. Every human being frolics first in her rich waters, in the safest, most serene home, the most perfect domicile—the womb. Mother molded us to perfection in liquids that we carry in us and spontaneously replenish for life. Seventy percent of our being is Yemoja. She is the saliva that makes speech possible. She is the blood surging through our veins. She is the vehicle through which sperm travels. She is the albumin of fertile eggs, blood, and milk. She is the vaginal fluid of the Earth2 that glistens between lips, flows through rock gardens, chuckles in creeks, and shimmies down streams. The dance of the river, the ocean’s roar, the gold-laced milk of my breasts, the salt of your tears: Yemoja. Like many Òrìsà, Yemoja originated in the spiritual realm and traveled to Earth to experience life and effect change. While all of the Gods are essential to the construction and maintenance of the spiritual and material worlds, C. L. Adeoye describes Yemoja as being “superior in both òrun (the spiritual realm) and earth.”3 Fittingly, Yemoja was highly sought after and enjoyed marriages to both Gods and mortals. In each of her many unions, reciprocal knowledge sharing resulted in impediments being transformed into blessings. In her marriage to Ògún, the 215 216 Teresa N. Washington God of Iron and Technology, Yemoja gained knowledge of and access to a vast cache of weaponry that she uses to protect her children. Her marriage to the human Oluweri of Ketu resulted in the sacrifice and dance that became the legendary Gèlèdé. During her marriage to the God Sàngó, Yemoja created a dance so entrancing that her cowives, Òsun and Yemojì, ran away enraged and did not stop running, as they became rivers. The same fate struck Yemoja, who, also caught in the throes of transformative asé and Àjé, became the Ògún River in Nigeria .4 Another origin text reveals that when Yemoja transformed, “Two streams of water gushed from her breasts and formed a lake which is said to be the source of all the rivers of the world.”5 The concept of a God transforming into a self-proliferating river that, in turn, births all of the waters of the world reflects the holism that is central to Yoruba cosmology, ontology, and geology. In his article, “In Praise of Metonymy: The Concepts of ‘Tradition’ and ‘Creativity’ in the Transmission of Yoruba Artistry over Time and Space,” Olabiyi Babalola Yai discloses an important truth: “The Yoruba have always conceived of their history as diaspora.”6 Yai reveals that the Yoruba diaspora, or Ìtànkálè, includes Ìko Àwúsí (the Americas), Ìdòròmù Àwúsè (Africa), Meréètélú (Eurasia), Mesìn Àkáárúbà (Arabia, the Middle East), and Ìwónran Níbì Ojúmotí í Móó Wá (Australia).7 Just as the Earth’s continents are “all lands of Ifá,”8 so too are the oceans, streams, lakes, and seas that fertilize these lands and nourish their inhabitants all the waters of Yemoja. Within the geopolitical confines of Yorubaland, Yemoja boasts a plethora of origin texts, names, praisenames, characteristics, and identities . But the God respects no geopolitical boundaries; she is global. A Yoruba proverb extends to human beings an empowering entitlement: “Orúko tó wu ni làá jé léhìn odi (Outside the walls of your birthplace, you have a right to choose the name that is attractive to you).”9 Just as water has perhaps as many names as there are languages, so too does Yemoja seamlessly adorn herself in the names and characteristics specific to her various locales and roles therein. As the literal lifeblood of the globe and the global Yoruba Ìtànkálè, Yemoja flows from Mali to Mississippi , from Benin to Brazil, from the Congo to Cairo to Cuba and Canada. Whether she is invoked as Yemonja, Yemaya, Mother of Waters, or Mary, she is the...