Yesterday we had a speaker come in to speak to us about Orishas and the Shangoh Baptist religion. The man that came in was named Efuwape (sp?) and he is also the son of an Orisha priest Ella Andall, who is very prominent over here in Trinidad. To sum up what he told us about Orishas and the Shango Baptist religion basically “Orisha” is not the religion, “Orishas” are different deities that represent a certain form of spirituality. For example, one might stand for strength while another Orisha stands for weakness and they all have names and purposes. So, when one who is a Shango Baptist prays, depending on the issue they are trying to defeat they call upon the Orisha that can assist them in that situation. After telling us some background about the Orishas Efuwape told us a personal story about how he found spirituality in the Orishas/Shango Baptist. He was in his 20’s (he didn't really specify his age) and was leaving a club in New York late at night and he was mistaken for someone else in the street and was taken into an alley way. 5 men surrounded him in this alley as he pleaded to them for his life and tried to explain he was not who they were looking for all the while they had a loaded gun shoved in his mouth. This whole time he was praying to god to save him, not really knowing if there was a god, as the trigger was pulled into his mouth, the gun didn’t go off! So the men just started to stab him all over continuously until he had no fight left in him and fell to the floor. With the little life he had, he heard a voice tell him to play dead, he listened, held his breath and pretended. The 5 men believed their work to be done and started to walk away, after holding his breath for so long he went into shock and started shaking. The men noticed, went back to him and broke a knife in the back of his neck. All the while, he was still alive! As soon as they left he thought he was definitely going to die, but the voice came back and told him to get up and run, RUN! Despite his weakness, and bloody body he got up and ran to stop a van which then took him to the hospital after about 20 minutes. So at this point he had been stabbed over 100 times in his head, half a knife in his neck and stab wounds all over his body. Once he got to the hospital he got stitched up and they realized he still had half a knife in the back of his head, so once they took it out he said made him pass out. 3 days after was his first experience with Orisha’s and spirituality, which he was reluctant to attend but did anyways. At this gathering/ feast (feast- celebration done every year to honor a certain Orisha and manifest that Orisha in the body of a human) he was touched by an Orisha which healed him of headaches he’s had all his life and at this time the human that was possessed told him the story of his near death experience. He was still reluctant to this new spirituality until the second time when an Orisha manifested in though the body of a famous Calypsonian which healed the wounds on his hands and told him the story of his experience again. Ever since then, he has devoted himself to this belief system. So, it was crazy to hear this story because this is something seen in movies and now I can say I’ve met someone who’s had one of these experiences! Not being a very spiritual or religious person this put the idea of spirituality, its wide ranged affects and the African retentions in this Trinidadian belief system. Once again I am inspired to find a belief system that I can fit into and relate to. I love the fact that all of the people we are meeting, tell us about the history as well as putting our own self to question as to values, beliefs, and identity. DOPE is all I can say, very happy I’m on this island!!!
Yellow girl is in a different mindset*
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