Osun-Osogbo Festival

The goddess and the hunter

The festival is believed to be more than 700 years old. According to tradition, a group of migrants led by the hunter Olutimehin settled on the bank of the Osun River to escape famine. There the river goddess Osun, Yeye Osun, rose from the water and asked him to lead his people to a special place, the site of present-day Osogbo, promising to protect them and bring them prosperity in return for an annual sacrifice. The town still keeps that promise.

The Osun Sacred Grove lies in the heart of Osogbo. A century ago every Yoruba town had a sacred grove; this is the largest to survive, and one of the last remnants of primary high forest in southern Nigeria. The Osun River, the spiritual home of the goddess, meanders through it, past forty shrines, sculptures and artworks to Osun and other Yoruba deities, two palaces, five sacred places and nine worship points along the river banks. Many of the sculptures were made in recent decades by the Movement of New Sacred Artists, in which the Austrian artist Suzanne Wenger joined the Yoruba community to revive the grove, which has become a symbol of identity for Yoruba people across the diaspora.

From the cleansing to the calabash

The festival re-establishes the mystic bond between the goddess and the people of the town and reunites them with their ancestors, the founders of the Osogbo kingdom. It opens with Iwopopo, the traditional cleansing of the town. Three days later the Ina Olojumerindinlogun is lit, a sixteen-point lamp said to be 500 years old, and then comes Iboriade, when the crowns of the past rulers of Osogbo, the Ataojas, are assembled for blessings.

The festival culminates in a procession to the shrine in the grove, where a large crowd gathers. It is led by the reigning Ataoja with the Arugba, the calabash carrier — a young woman of royal lineage who offers the sacrifice to the goddess — and a committee of priestesses, re-enacting the first meeting between the town’s founder and Osun, amid drumming, dancing, music, elaborate costumes and the recitation of praise poetry in Yoruba.