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THE DICE GOD KNOTS, GOD OF THE REFLECTION
" it is the most important of our gods. It concerns a relative importance, but that does not come from us You remind this trip of Spirits beside God? "
LEGBA is indeed
the most important god of the pantheon Yourouba and the south
Bénin state, and a more general manner, the gulf of the Benin.
Its history holds in two main legends. Here is the first.
" The legend
tells that there was a child, son of king. This boy does
not cease
to lie. It was a child that lied about whole.
One tells
that it could not to prevent some; that this is for important things
or although
this is for insignificant facts. It is thought injury its
relatives,
king and queen as
well as persons of their surrounding. Because the child
was woke;
it was intelligent, agile and resourceful. A day, the son comme back
to the
house after one of its exits that nobody could make sure that it was
there
it tells to have
been. The child was all excited. It announced to
its family
that it had found a
coconut to a crossing of paths,
on the low side. The fruit was partly concealed under the vegetation.
It would wear
large two eyes;
eyes of man; huge eyes; scary;
eyes that look it
fixedly.
The child tells
that it had escaped, being able not to support
this
penetrating and
permanent look that pierces it. Of course, nobody in
the family
neither in the country granted faith to these statements; one will
milk
it liar, then
nobody had been lateed on its purposes. Some days after
the account
of the vision, the child becomes melancholic. Little by little,
it sank
in a great sadness. It got sick and finishes by deceasing. Nobody no
what sickness it had suffered until to perish some. One buried
it according
to the ritual.
In days, weeks,
then months that followed this death, great
misfortunes
destroyed on the
country. The king was distraught ahead what arrived to
its people.
It consulted the soothsayers to understand the situation that was
that
the kingdom since
the death of the child. It wanted to know why the
earth
groans. Why the
rain no longer would fall; and why the sun shines
so, without
for as much reheat men. The master of the country desires to know
why the
pauper suffered so; and why the rich had become poorer than the
pauper. Because more nothing pushes; the vegetation no longer had
water to live
and to make live.
Men, as beasts, died hunger, fear and
desolation.
The monarch
summoned the soothsayers in order that they find causes of
so sufferings.
They sought long. They discovered finally that the child
was other
only the Spirit of crossroads; the first of gods; the most
important
of - them. That
by which the man opens all doors of the
existence.
The soothsayers
undestought that by its lies, the god
had destroyed the harmony that reigned in
it. It met then
its own eyes to this crossroads; eyes
that were not anything other that its conscience; eyes that were its
essence structurless. Its
death was the ominous influence consequence of
this
conscience on it
- even because the Spirit had not honored its
soul.
If men had
granted faith to the encounter of the child, they would
have
pacified the soul
of the god by appropriate ceremonies and that -
here
would not have
destroyed the harmony to its be; the
god would not have pulled
the world.
"
One
explains, by this legend, the fact that this god is honored to cross
it paths. Here is for the layman and also without doubt, for the
worshipper.
But the history
of the god of the head does not stop there; because, one the honor in
residences equally. Here is how the watchmaker explains this devotion
to its host.
" - If one finds
the god of the head in each house, "tells - it," it is for
an other
reason that a seconds legend on this Spirit delivers us.
It is
necessary well to understand that that also between in the teaching
of the
god; it is
necessary to understand that it is an other aspect.
It is question there - also, a child. The history tells that, bit after the beginning, lived a soothsayer that had a son. The child was gluttonous. It eats all: vegetables, fish, poultry, goats and pigs; whole. Its mother was obliged to give it all the food that was available; it was thus all the time, so that it would remain more nothing to eat for men. Pushed by its gluttony, the child finishes by eating its mother. Then, it fulminated against its father and threatened to devour it to its tour. The man of the art consulted a soothsayer; that - here the counselor. It prescribes it devotions to undertake to protect. It suggested it equally to honor a cup - cup. When the gluttonous son come back to the cost with its threats, its father carved it in thousand pieces; each of these parts was also the totality of the god. The father continued pieces through nines skies by carving them again each time. In the ninth sky, the father succed to pacify the child that was other only the god of the head, the god of croosroands. This Spirit had lost, there also, its harmony by its gluttony, the god found its harmony and the generosity live it again. It resuscitated its mother. It decided to remain in our houses, if we wish it, to remind us the necessity of the sharing.
In summary, here
is the history of Lêgba; it arrived it some other misfortunes,
but it is in lot always. It is without doubt for this reason, but
equally to to have known to be made choose as first god by the
Powerful Whole, that one tells it a scoundrel god.
And now, that to
think some?