Many years ago I found myself in a heated discussion with a priest of a modern Pagan denomination concerning the nature of priesthood and the meaning of the crown. Recently I have returned to that conversation in my own thoughts, observing how many people today hunger for crowns of one kind or another, whether for status, titles, offices, recognition, or legitimacy.
The disagreement arose over a man who had spent nearly two decades
presenting himself as something he was not. He had built his reputation upon
false claims of initiation and authority. Eventually, however, he did receive a
legitimate initiation and immediately sought to establish himself as the
foremost representative of that tradition in Brazil, despite the existence of
elders who were both technically and legitimately senior to him.
During our discussion, my colleague argued that the crown itself
deserved respect regardless of who happened to wear it. My younger and
considerably less patient self replied that I would not respect a crown worn by
a pig dressed in human clothing, and that was the end of the conversation.
Time, however, has a way of softening certainties. Today I believe the
matter is considerably more nuanced. We frequently confuse different kinds of
crowns and assume that every office, title, inheritance, achievement, election,
or initiation carries the same meaning. They do not.
Take Quimbanda as an example. When I first began searching for it in the
early 2000s, it remained largely a hidden tradition. One entered by invitation,
and genuine ritual specialists were relatively few. Today, Quimbanda has become
fashionable. Everywhere one looks there are Tatas, Yayas, Chiefs, priests,
priestesses, and an ever-expanding hierarchy of titles. Yet it is precisely
here that language begins to betray us.
The words priest and priestess are, in many respects,
unfortunate translations. They import assumptions that belong to Christianity
rather than to the traditions they are meant to describe. A Catholic priest
occupies an ecclesiastical office shaped by a particular theology of ordination.
A Tata in Quimbanda is something rather different. He is, above all, a ritual
specialist.
The Kingdom of Kongo recognised this distinction with astounding
clarity. When Catholic missionaries arrived in Central Africa, Kongolese people
did not understand them primarily as priests in the Christian sense. Rather,
they interpreted them as banganga, meaning, ritual specialists
possessing powerful knowledge and mastery over the mysteries surrounding the nkisi
called Jesus Christ. Whether or not this interpretation reflected Catholic
theology was beside the point. Within the Kongo worldview, the missionary was
recognised according to function rather than ecclesiastical identity.
Traditional societies rarely understood priesthood as personal
achievement. It was an office entrusted to an individual for the benefit of a
community and in service to powers greater than oneself. Among the Yorùbá, this
distinction becomes even clearer.
In English, and more broadly within the Christian tradition, the word priest
has become an ontological category. It describes what a person is. One
is a priest, bishop, monk, or nun. These titles denote a permanent identity
conferred through ordination. Catholic theology even teaches that ordination
impresses an indelible sacramental character upon the soul. Priesthood
therefore becomes an enduring condition of the individual, and over time the
office and the person gradually merge. The moral failures of the priest
consequently become perceived as failures of the priesthood itself.
Yorùbá terminology points in another direction altogether.
A Babaláwo is not simply a "priest of Ifá." The word
joins bàbá ("father," "elder," or
"master") with awo ("mystery" or "esoteric
knowledge"), describing one who has become a father or master of the
mysteries. Likewise, an Oníṣègùn is the master of medicine, while an Olóòrìṣà
is one who belongs to, serves, or possesses an Òrìṣà. These titles describe
relationships, competencies, and responsibilities rather than permanent
ontological identities.
The language itself reflects a broader worldview. Western religious
vocabulary often favours nouns describing states of being like priesthood,
ministry, sanctity, vocation and such like, whereas Yorùbá religious language
continually returns to actions and relationships. One divines, sacrifices,
greets the Òrìṣà, remembers the ancestors, tends the shrine, and maintains the
lineage. Identity emerges through faithful practice rather than replacing it.
This difference extends to initiation itself. Within Christianity,
ordination changes what one is. Within the Yorùbá tradition, initiation
undoubtedly transforms the individual spiritually, yet that transformation is
expressed primarily through obligation rather than ontology. The initiate must
continue learning, remembering, sacrificing, observing taboos, preserving the
lineage, and performing the rites correctly. Priesthood is therefore never
simply received once; it is continually enacted.
Perhaps the contrast may be reduced to a single question. Christianity
tends to ask, "Who are you?" Traditional Yorùbá religion is more
inclined to ask, "Whose are you?" or "What have you been
entrusted to preserve?"
This understanding also explains why character occupies a different
place.
Among the greatest misunderstandings surrounding priesthood is the
belief that initiation transforms a person into someone morally superior. This
expectation exists not only among outsiders but also among initiates
themselves, who gradually begin to confuse the sacred office with their own
personalities. The result is disappointment on one side and pride on the other.
Ifá offers a more demanding vision.
One of the verses of Ogbè-Àte reminds us:
Now
if I have been made,
I should reconstruct myself.
For I have been made,
And I must also remake myself.
Among Awo, this verse serves as a continual reminder that initiation is
not the completion of one's formation but its true beginning. Destiny is not
the finished building but its foundation. We are born with potential,
temperament, and vocation, yet these require cultivation through discipline,
sacrifice, experience, and conscious participation in life. The first creation
is divine; the second is human. The first gives us existence; the second gives
us character.
Ifá therefore understands life not as the passive unfolding of destiny
but as an ongoing collaboration between heaven and earth, between the Orí we
received before birth and the person we gradually become. The Awo, no less than
anyone else, is never a finished creation but an artisan continually reshaping
himself according to the pattern already placed within him.
In this respect, Ifá echoes the Delphic injunction to "know
thyself," Aristotle's insistence that virtue is acquired through habitual
practice, and the alchemical maxim solve et coagula. Yet it departs
significantly from both Christian and many modern Pagan understandings of
priesthood. Contemporary Paganism often inherits the Christian tendency to
regard priesthood as a mark of spiritual identity, replacing apostolic
succession with personal authenticity or divine election rooted in the ethos of
the particular denomination. The individual becomes the centre of religious
authority.
Ifá reverses that perspective and instead states that the office does
not exist to elevate the individual; the individual exists to preserve the
office. And this brings us back to the question of the crown.
Perhaps my younger self was both right and wrong. He was wrong to
dismiss the crown because of the failings of its wearer. Yet he was right to
recognise that no crown possesses the power to transform poor character into
wisdom. The crown deserves respect because it belongs to the lineage, the
ancestors, the Òrìṣà, and ultimately to Orí, not because of the virtues of the
individual temporarily wearing it. The character and virtues of the person
wearing the crown will naturally affect how both the crown and its bearer are
perceived, for the crown exists precisely because the sacred is given a
temporary manifestation through a human being. Yet we should be careful not to
confuse the manifestation with the source. The individual may honour or
dishonour the office entrusted to him, but the office itself belongs to the
lineage, the mystery, and the divine powers from which it derives. The bearer
is temporary; the crown endures.
At the same time, the wearer owes a debt to the crown. Every initiation
is an invitation to become worthy of what one has received. To be crowned in
Ifá, Òrìṣà worship, or Quimbanda is not to become the ruler of others but to
become the servant of a mystery. The crown does not proclaim that one has
arrived; it reminds one that the work has only just begun.
NdMF
(Art: Jean-Michel Basquiat – Untitled, 1982)