IS ANIMAL SACRIFICE IMPORTANT?

Is Animal Sacrifice Important?

Animal Sacrifice is the single most controversial ritual practice performed by practitioners of African based religions such as Lucumi, Haitian Vodou, and Traditional Ifa. Outsiders have long said that animal sacrifice is not necessary because the need to sacrifice animals to our spirits has been subverted by modernity. And while, for some, the cost of animals may not be much of an economic sacrifice there is more to the performance of animal sacrifice beyond the simple economic expense.

Many priests have written about the importance of animal sacrifice and some have even defended animal sacrifice in the U.S. court system (e.g., the Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, 1993) to protect legally our rights to practice our religion. We, as a community, have spent a great deal of time and effort educating the public by writing for those people who don’t practice an African based religion. These efforts are usually designed to explain the how’s and why’s of animal sacrifice – or to defend these practices as “logical” and spiritually necessary. However, today I am writing this article not for the public – but for practitioners. I found that many practitioners themselves do not fully understand the reasons for sacrifice and some even believe erroneously that a priest can – through sustained spiritual development – reach a point in their own so-called spiritual evolution that would make animal sacrifice unnecessary.

I would like to begin our discussion by talking about why we perform animal sacrifice. Animal sacrifice does not provide us with ase – ase only comes from Olodumare and the Orisa. Nor do we give blood to the Orisa to give them ase as they are already the keepers of Olodumare’s divine energy. We do not give blood to the Orisa to give our tools or “shrines” ase or even to give our lives ase. Believing that ritual sacrifice gives our Orisa ase is due to a misunderstanding not just of ritual sacrifice but also of ase. Even so, there is a relationship between ase and blood sacrifice – which is probably where this misunderstanding began.

But before we can grasp fully the true connection between sacrifice and ase we must understand what an Orisa “pot” is and what it is not. It may be surprising to hear, but Orisa pots are not shrines in the classic Greco-Roman sense. Even so, I am guilty of using the word “shrine” (and I really dislike “fetish” as an alternative) myself. However, I do so because English lacks the vocabulary to describe the ways that Orisa “shrines” are understood in a Yoruba context without using long clunky phrases. Orisa pots are “incarnations of the Orisa from Orun to earth.” Meaning, Orisa pots are not altars, they are not representational, they are not symbolic – they are manifestations of the Orisa – and their ase – themselves. Blood sacrifice does not give your Orisa ase, as the divine keepers of Olodumare’s ase it’s the Orisa who give us ase – not the other way around. What sacrifice does is nourish the Orisa’s ase that isintrinsic to their existence – which then gives the ase inherent in Orisa pots more efficacy, power, and presence.

But there’s more to animal sacrifice than actively recharging an Orisa’s cosmic ase-battery. Animal sacrifice also nourishes us with the meat thereby completing the cycle and affirming our connection to our earthly and heavenly egbe (community). Sacrificing an animal nourishes the spirits (with blood) and the community (with meat) thereby indexing the powerful link between humanity and the Orisa as they are both nourished by a single ritual process. Offerings of fruit, amidu, and even drinks all recharge our Orisa’s ase but they perform this task slowly and with coolness. Blood sacrifice, on the other hand, recharges an Orisa quickly and with heat.

It is – in part – the intensity and “heat” produced from animal sacrifice that makes animal sacrifice mandatory in all Orisa and Ifa initiations. Simply put, if you were initiated without the act of animal sacrifice your Orisa was not fully birthed and by now your Orisa has dissolved back to the earth from which it came. Blood is not just symbolic of “birthing,” the intensity of blood sacrifice also has a practical purpose – it charges – or electrifies – the struggling ase of a newly incarnated Orisa so that it may endure on earth. The act of sacrifice jolts a newly birthed Orisa with the electricity of life and charges the Orisa “ase-battery” quickly and fully. Indeed, this is also why some priests believe that your Orisa should be given blood once a year – it keeps the ase of your Orisa nourished and efficacious. Orisa birthed without blood are left uncharged and unfinished which leaves them to dissipate into back into the earth. Ritual sacrifice during initiation is mandatory. Anyone who performs an initiation ceremony without blood – and calls it Ifa or Orisa worship – is a fraud. Not only does the performance of blood sacrifice connect the new initiate to their community but it also nourishes the ase of their newly birthed orisa giving sustainable power.

While most people understand that animal sacrifice is necessary for initiation I have found that many people do not have a solid grasp on the ceremony of sacrifice. It is Ogun and his sacred metal that make sacrifice possible – therefore at the moment of sacrifice Ogun gets the “first taste” of all animals given to the Orisa. Indeed, I have heard the sacrificial knife called “the tongue of Ogun.” This means that after every sacrifice a small drop of palm oil should be placed on the blade of your knife to honor the ase of Ogun which made the offering possible. Additionally, in West Africa – unlike in the West – the size of the animal sacrificed is rarely fixed. Instead, it correlates with the number of people that the animal needs to feed. The animals do not carry ase – the Orisa do. The animals do not give ase to a newly birthed Orisa – they merely activate or charge the ase already inherent in the Orisa. Therefore, a goat does not carry more ase than a chicken –  why? Because animals do not carry ase anymore than we do, Orisa do. If you need to feed four or less people, sacrifice a chicken. If you need to feed five or more people, offer a goat. It’s really that simple.

Even so, there are occasions when larger animals such as goats or pigs are necessary, but not for the reasons you many think. For example, in my lineage we require that a person give four goats to their Ifa before they can receive and Igba Odu. This doesn’t mean that your Ifa must have a certain amount of ase prior to receiving the Orisa Odu, even if it’s often worded as such. This means that that Ifa priest must have feed the community – that is, served his community – several times prior to being vested with Odu because Odu by her nature is communal and designed to protect and empower the Ifa priest’s community. Of course, it’s for these reasons that Ifa priests should be made with a goat and many Orisa priests are. But it’s important to understand that the sacrifice of larger animals during initiations are not to give your Orisa more ase (they already have all they need from Olodumare) it’s about the new priest feeding and serving, their community in a symbolic and real way.

I hope this gives us, as a community, things to think about. In this blog post I wanted to show that 1) animal sacrifice charges ase – it does not bestow ase 2) animal sacrifice is necessary for initiations, and any initiation done without animal sacrifice is an unfortunate scam, and 3) the size of the animal given during ceremonies has to do with how many people need to be fed or as a symbolic gesture indexing a new priests service to their community – not because some animals have more ase than others.

Ire-o!

Awó Fáladé Òsúntólá