For
hundreds of years, across a constantly expanding and retracting spectrum of
religious reverence, Legba, and all
spiritual-Divine beings whose worship is associated with him, has held a
titular and vital role as, among others, the force that enables all divine and
spiritual interactions. Papa Legba,
in the expanded Haitian spiritual philosophy, is invoked at least before and
after every Voodoo ritual, or ceremony. Though
the centuries have seen his position and stature changed, from mountain or sun
God to priapistic Trickster, all the way to a feeble old man, he has been
invoked and revered for centuries. His domain, like the Greek Hecate, are
crossroads- the sites where the material and divine realms meet, and he enables
each and every one of these meetings.
His
ubiquity across Haitian, and other, religious traditions, his innumerable
representations, and respective symbolic virtues arise from a vast array of
cultural import and significance ascribed to him. Legba provides his devotees
with a wealth of spiritual value. His role in all ceremonial and religious practices
within Haitian Voodoo, the changes his representation has undergone, and his
unique historical and metaphysical function (, as a cosmic gate keeper), all culminate
in a desire and veneration of a now far-gone spiritual and cultural heritage.
This
figure, venerated across the world, holds a unique place amongst the spiritual
pantheon of Haitian Voodoo, in his role as the facilitator of divine communion.
To understand fully, however, the value and role of this figure it is necessary
to first examine his origins, as a distant creator, sun and fertility-god, and
the significance of his role as a celestial polyglot, providing and sustaining
spiritual practices. The importance of
Legba is manifold, his representation and reverence amongst Haitians, and all
descendants of the ancient African religions which worship him, provides a
cultural connection in addition to the religious ritual connotations this loa provides. He represents, through
virtue of transmission across centuries, an anchor to a distant past, an anchor
to a culture and pantheon, which remains accessible to us only through our
active sustaining of Legba. His
physical appearance, and divine qualities associated with him change,
reflecting the status and evaluations of his congregation as a collective,
altering the image and persona of the God to match their connection to his
past.
And though to the Haitian Legba is no longer,
in part, the virile creator, or Sun-God progenitor, both his function and his
presence and continued veneration, intimate his importance as not only a
spiritual guide, but also a constant link between those peoples now scattered
and divorced from their homelands and the extant metaphysical imprint of it
within the ‘spiritual world’. In his Gods of the Haitian Mountains, Harold
Courlander provides this general depiction of the primordial Papa Legba.
“Legba Se, or Legba Attibon… One of the most
important of Haitian loa, generally the first invoked in any service. He is the
protector of the gateway, the Crossroads, and the highway… In Africa, Legba was
something of a mischief-maker, and assigned the part of a go-between who spoke
to the vodouns on behalf of human petitioners. He was a linguist who knew how
to talk to all the gods…”1
We
find here not only a representation of Legba as a linguist specializing in
metaphysical interactions, but also a conflation with communication, the
divine, and the physical world. Legba is both a spiritual figure, and in very
much the same way a historical one.
It is this notion of the history and original ‘state’, or origin as it were, of
the divinity Legba (and through association, his related pantheons) with not
only a divine, transcendental realm of spirits, but also a relic of spiritual
and cultural lineage otherwise lost to the dust of time and diaspora. Ginen, a varied and catchall term for
the transient spiritual plane, is conflated with African origins, cultural and
historical as well as spiritual, though his temples have crumbled and kingdoms
been consigned to history, a fragment of the might, splendor and heritage of
that lost time are preserved within the metaphysical tapestry of Ginen. So far
gone that once fertile and neigh-omnipotent beings have
become shriveled and impotent, and so distant that our language is incapable of recalling it.
In
the introduction to his examination of the transmission, and variations of the
God Legba, Donald Cosentino provides this summary. “Myths of Eshu Elegba, the trickster deity of the Yourba of Nigeria,
have been borrowed by the Fon of Dahomey, and Later transported to Haiti, where
they were personified by the Vodoun into the loa Papa Legba…”2
and later describes shared qualities of each interpretation of Legba, as
they became conflated with their perspective religious traditions.
“First among the loa in precedence is Legba, affectionately called Papa
by vodunists, who implore him, “Papa Legba, Remove the barrier for me.”… That
same service is preformed by Eshu and Legba in Yourba and Fon tradition. Both
deities presided at crossroads, regulating traffic between the visible and
invisible worlds…”3
His progression from there splinters, he is commonly mischievous and
sexually virile in the Yourba traditions. And is considered ‘Chief of all
Gods’, according to one Dahomey myth, purporting his skill as musician and
communicator.4
Traditionally
associated with St.Peter, the Haitian Papa Legba is generally equated with whichever saint is appropriately enfeebled, no longer virile or daunting Legba is now
dressed in rags, enfeebled and walking with a stick. Years of wandering in the
diasporaic exile termed gallot (גלות) by the
Jews; meaning both exiled from homeland and culture, has clearly had its effect on Legba. His feeble,
wizened state betrays his status, one of the old gods; he has been deflated and aged by time. And though no
longer virile, present and powerful, his presence and veneration provides a
means of interacting directly with the past.
That
being said, while he is a connection
to a past it is an ancient, and distant past, he is aged and withered and his
contemporaries, other spirits, gods or loa,
are wholly gone from the comprehendible realm of practice, ancient and decrepit
Legba is all that remains of it. The loa
contacted, and communed with provide their own spiritual insight, and many of
them like Legba can be traced back to high ranking divinities in other
traditions long past. “…Many of the Loa
are ancient deities, sib-founders, and ancestors who loom out of a misty, half
forgotten past… They are the decisive bonds which holds the people of Haiti to
Africa.”5 And though not a definite rule within the
diverse world of Haitian, to say nothing of the varied West African traditions
as a whole(s), religious expression; Legba alone exists, or at least fulfills
the purpose of, tethering past and present. As a Metaphysical linguist he has a
‘leg ‘ in each world, and is now the only force capable of fostering divine
transmission, and interactions with the otherwise alien and unintelligible
powers. Returning again to the Judaic expressions of exile, I do not think it
is inappropriate to view Papa Legba as a Haitian expression of religious and
cultural alienation and longing. His physical, anthropomorphic traits inform
the same sense of melancholy and nostalgic longing for something consigned to
the past as is evoked in the lamentation of the destruction of the temple and
exile from Jerusalem of Psalms. Cosentino also refers to the melancholic status
of Legba within Haitian culture, presenting an “Elegiac” and “Melancholy.”
Vodoun Lyric.
“Kandio Legba, You are an old spirit
And old man from Dahomey
Walking in the public roads.
Legba, You are an old spirit
An innocent spirit, an African
spirit.
You are old, an old spirit from
Aradda.
Since the beginning of the world
You have been guardian of the
entrances.
Legba, you are very old. (Laguerre
1980:51)”6
To refer to Legba as a singular entity, as I have been doing,
is to fail to adequately encapsulate the role the divinity plays in the various
cultures that revere him. Among a few of his appellations, and emanations
recorded in Haitian religious practice include “Legba Grand Chimin, Legba Ibo, Legba Keye, Legba Mait, Legba Petro and
Legba se-Attibon.” 7
And if we include in this the variation produced through different geographical
religious developments, Legba can be seen as a nearly ubiquitous presence.As
mentioned previously, all ritual practice requires the permission and
complaisance of Legba. He opens the gate, and translates the transmission of transcendent
experience, and thus all ceremonies or rituals open, close, and rely wholly on
communion with Legba. He makes these interactions, not only intelligible, but possible.
As a cosmic polyglot, Legba is able
to assess and translate the rituals, as they are devoted to him. The rituals,
songs, dances and myriad pieces of the vodou
ritual function, in this way, as an attempt to issue our messages, Legba translates and provides an
intelligible stream of transmission. The ceremonies do not involve any passage
into a new material place, but provides a direct, and intelligible link for
communication between our material world and Ginen, the overlapping spiritual realm.
Ginen,
the fluid realm Legba provides communion with, is metaphorically identified with Africa,
and as previously noted a shared religious origin. Courlander describes the
metaphysical interaction between practitioners and this abstract spiritual
realm as “…In Africa, in the island below
the sea, or below the water…”8,
and goes on to state those mounted by loa
are sometimes said to speak in ‘ African languages'. Legba the gatekeeper and linguist provide the
link to this realm, translating divine and material. Ginen is more than a spirit world, as
previously described it represents a portion of a now lost pantheon, Ginen has
preserved in time a snapshot of what used to be. Legba's ubiquity arises from his
role in ritual and mythology, but more than this, represents a connection to a
lineage and cultural heritage consigned to the past, and to Gods otherwise lost
to time. In religious and cosmological terms Ginen is much like the biblical
concept of a firmament, a divine
barrier between the material world and the divine, giving shape and boundaries
to our definitions of the perspective realities. The Ginen unlocked by Legba,
however, also provides a connection to the mythological Africa, wherein the loa first became manifest and
worshipped.
The issue of Mounting presents an interesting
parallel; the horse provides a
physical body and thus experientially understandable form for an abstract
spiritual entity, an exchange made possible through Legba's rending the gate, and providing meaningful divine
communion. These Loa, Legba included,
are still beyond the scope of our rational minds to comprehend, necessitating
Legba’s roll as gate keeper and informing the symbolic linguistics of metaphysical communication, and as such each horse takes on certain costume or
theatrical elements, not to create or fulfill the role of whichever loa mounts him, but to communicate
better through an esoteric-symbolical lexicon.
Much in the same, the primordial
Papa Legba of Haitian vodou has been mounted
by the Haitian religious populace, and in-fact any populace, who in turn apply and alter his symbolic and
aesthetic ‘appearance’, a process which is un-involved but just as telling and
important. Just as the Judeo-Christian God, through formless, perfect and
monistic is supplanted with anthropomorphized traits, not meant to be literally
extrapolated but representing a myriad of mystical religious symbolism and
meaning, the Haitian personification of Papa Legba represent a cultural
valuation, and assessment of the antiquity of their African heritage. Though tattered and reduced, and by all
accounts wholly gone from our world, some un-altered piece of it is preserved
within the fabric of the spiritual realm, wherein the old gods and ancestor
spirits dwell, save Legba who in all traditions wanders endlessly through
worlds.
Though
beyond the scope of an in-depth analysis, Thomas F. Marvins essay Children of Legba: Musicians at the
crossroads in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man provides a great deal of depth
and insight into the cultural significance of Legba, as a uniting force
providing a connection to roots and origins forbidden or otherwise absent from
the practitioners life. “Providing a
bridge between the earthly and spiritual planes, a crossroads where living and
dead, human and vodoun, past, present, and future meet.”9
Though he is deflated and stature, Legba
presents a connection to a culture and spiritual realm shared, venerated and
thus sustained by his unending connection and communion with his followers.
Legba is the only God left, though withered and displaced from his former
glory, which can still communicate
with his followers. He is the only means of returning to, and thus sustaining
of, a forgotten and otherwise lost spiritual epoch.
1 Courlander,
Harold. "God of the Haitian Mountains." Journal of Negro History
29.3 (1944): 365
2 Cosentino,
Donald. "Transformations of Eshu in Old and New World Mythologies." The
Journal of American Folklore 100.397 (1987): 261
3 ibid
4 Marvin,
Thomas F. "Musicians of Legba: Musicians at the Crossroads in Ralph
5 Courlander,
Harold. "God of the Haitian Mountains." Journal of Negro History
29.3 (1944): 342
6 Cosentino,
Donald. "Transformations of Eshu in Old and New World Mythologies." The
Journal of American Folklore 100.397 (1987): 280
7 Courlander,
Harold. "God of the Haitian Mountains." Journal of Negro History
29.3 (1944): 339-72. Web.
8 Courlander,
Harold. "God of the Haitian Mountains." Journal of Negro History
29.3 (1944): 339-72. Web.
9 Marvin,
Thomas F. "Musicians of Legba: Musicians at the Crossroads in Ralph
Ellison's Invisible Man." American Literature 68.3 (1996):588