Do we know how to look at Eshu?

In transporting the image of the trickster and mediator from West Africa through the white Catholic cultures of Europe via the slave trade and to the Americas, Eshu/Ellegua came up against prejudice, both cultural and religious. The christian repression of sexuality and the fear of the shamanic trance state so integral to dance worship in African culture precluded a deeper understanding of the deep faith evidenced by the belifs of the Ifa and Yoruba. The Christians separated the elements of good and evil: the temptation is not something incorporated into the angel archetype but is relegated to the fallen angel. Among the West African and by extension the beliefs of the diaspora which sprang out of them, good and evil are two sides of the same coin, and it is what one does with the face that shows up that matters. Interpretation of the gifts and lessons is thebridge between the sacred and the profane.


for a fascinating read...go to http://www.carnival.com/sf00/trickster.htm read about Trickster at the Crossroad: West Africa's God of Messages, Sex and Deceit by Erik Davis.