This chapter introduces Esu-Elegbara, a trickster figure from Yoruba mythology that recurs throughout African and African diasporic oral traditions. Esu is a divine messenger and interpreter who connects the human and divine realms. He presides over crossroads and mediates communication between gods and humans. Despite the trauma of the Middle Passage, aspects of West African cultures survived and were adapted in the New World, including this trickster topos of Esu-Elegbara, showing the underlying unity between dispersed African diasporic cultures.

1. THE SIGNIFYING
MONKEY r
A Theory of African-American •
Literary Criticism
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
,<
O X F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS
New York Oxford
694916

2. r. i-
- O X F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS
For Sharon Adams
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Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1988 by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
First published in 1988 by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1989
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.
The signifying monkey.
Bibliography: p. Includes index.
1. American literature-Afro-American authors-History
and criticism-Theory, etc. 2. Afto-Americans-Intellectual life.
3. Afro-Americans in literature. 4. Criticism-United States.
5. Oral tradition-United States. 6, Mythology, African, in literature.
7. Afro-Americans-Folklore. 8. American literature-African influences.
I. Title.
PS153.N5G28 1988 810'.9'896073 88-14005
ISBN 0-19-503463-5
ISBN 0-19-506075-X (PBK.)
6 8 10 9 7
Printed in the United States of America

3. Contents
r. r
J Introduction, xix
PART O N E A Theory of the Tradition
1. A M y t h of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the
Signifying Monkey, 3
2. The Signifying Monkey and the Language of Signifyin (g)
Rhetorical Difference and the Orders of Meaning, 44
3. Figures of Signification, 89
PART TWO Reading the Tradition
4. The Trope of the Talking Book, 127
5. Zora Neale Hurston and the Speakerly Text, 170
6. On "The Blackness of Blackness": IshmaelReed
and a Critique of the Sign, 217
/7. Color Me Zora: Alice Walker's (Re) Writing of
the Speakerly Text, 239
Notes, 259
Index, 281

4. xxviii Introduction
ironic form of fantasy that she inherited from Nella Larsen and Jessie Fauset.
Finally, Walker's decision to place The Color Purple i n a line of descent
that runs directly from Their Eyes by engaging i n a narrative strategy that
tropes Hurston's concept of voice (by shifting i t into the form of the epistolary ONE
novel and a written rather than a spoken vernacular) both extends d r a m a t i -
cally the modes of revision available to writers i n the tradition and reveals
that acts of formal revision can'be loving acts, of bonding rather than ritual
slayings atEsu's crossroa'ds;c=*'
;
A Theory of the Tradition
I then commenced and continued copying the Italics in Webster's Spell-
ing Book, until I could make them all without looking on the book. By
this time, my little Master Thomas had gone to school, and learned how
to write, and had written over a number of copy-books. These had been
brought home, and shown to some of our near neighbors, and then laid
aside. M y mistress used to go to class meeting at the Wilk Street meet-
inghouse every Monday afternoon, and leave me to take care of the
house. When left thus, I used to spend the time in writing in the spaces
left in Master Thomas's copy-book, copying what he had written. I
continued to do this until I could write a hand very similar to that of
Master Thomas. Thus, after a long, tedious effort for years, I finally
succeeded in learning how to write. Frederick Douglass
. . . language, for the individual consciousness, lies on the borderline
between oneself and the other. The word in language is half someone
else's. I t becomes "one's own" only when the speaker populates it with
his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word,
adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention. Prior to this
moment of appropriation, the word does not exist in a neutral and i m -
personal language (it is not, after all, out of a dictionary that the
speaker gets his words!), but rather it exists in other people's mouths,
in other people's contexts, serving other people's intentions: it is from
there that one must take the word, and make it one's own.
Mikhail Bakhtin
I R9 Q' 17

5. 1
• •' A Myth of Origins:
Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey /
Esu, do not undo me, ' .-,'• • "..'
Do not falsify the words of my mouth, ' •.
Do not misguide the movements of my feet,. ,
'You who translates yesterday's words
Into novel utterances, •
<
.
Do not undo me,.
I bear you sacrifice. •-•
Traditional Oriki Esu*.
A h yes!
Edju played many tricks
Edju made kindred people-go to war; 1
Edju pawned the moon and carried off the sun:
Edju made the.Gods strive against.themselves.
But Edju is not evil.
He brought us the best there is;
He gave us the I f a oracle; ,.•
He brought the sun.. ..... . . . . . . . .
But for Edju, the fields would be barren..
Traditional Oriki Esu 2
through Harlem smoke of beer, and^whiskey, I . .. ;
understand the mystery of the signifying monkey
in a blue haze of inspirationj I reach to the •
totality of Being. '
: ::' ''
Larry Neal, "Malcolm X — A h Autobiography" 3
The black Africans who survived the dreaded ".Middle Passage" 'from the
west coast of Africa to the New. W o r l d did not sail, alone. Violently and
radically abstracted from their' civilizations, these AMciEaiB75eyerj|iel^s.
carried within them to the Western hemisphere aspects of their culturesthat
were meaningful, that could not be obliterated, and that they cho.se,',by. acts!
3
..A !

6. A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey 5
4 A Theory of the Tradition
of will, not to forget: their music (a mnemonic device for Bantu and K w a
tonal languages), their myths, their expressive institutional structures, their
metaphysical systems of order, and their forms of performance. I f "the Dixie
Pike," as Jean Toomer put the matter in Cane, "has grown from a goat path
in Africa," then the black vernacular tradition stands as its signpost, at that
liminal crossroads of culture contact and ensuing difference at which Africa
meets Afro-America. ..
Common sense, i n retrospect,' argues that these retained elements of c u l -
ture should have survived;;;that.their complete annihilation would have been
far more remarkable than their preservation. The African', after all, was a
traveler, albeit.an abrupt, ironic traveler, through space and time; and like
every traveler, the African "read" a new environment within a received
framework of meaningindhelief. The notion that.the Middle Passage was so
traumatic that i t functioned to create in the African a tabula rasa.of c o n -
sciousness is as odd as i t is a fiction, a fiction that has served several eco-
nomic orders and their attendant ideologies. The full erasure of traces of c u l -
tures as splendid, as^ ancient, and as shared by the slave traveler as the classic
cultures of traditional West Africa would have been extraordinarily difficult.
Slavery i n the New World, a veritable seething cauldron of cross-cultural.,
contact, however, did serve to create a dynamic of exchange and revision
among numerous previously isolated Black African cultures on a scale u n -
precedented i n African history. Inadvertently, African slavery i n the New Figure 1. Esu-Elegbara. From the author's collection. Photos by Sarah Whitdker.
W o r l d satisfied the preconditions for the emergence of a new African culture,
a truly Pan-African culture fashioned as a colorful weave^of linguistic, i n s t i -
tutional, metaphysical, and formal threads; What survived this fascinating mental terms for order that the black enslaved^ brought w i t h them from A f -
process was the most useful and the most compelling of the fragments at rica, and maintained through the mnemonic devices peculiar to oral l i t e r a -
hand. Afro-American culture is an African culture' with a difference as s i g - ture, continued to function both as meaningful units of N e w - W o r l d belief .
1
nified by the catalysts of Bnglish.jDutch, French, Portuguese, or Spanish l a n - systems and as traces of their;origins. We lack written.documents to answer
guages and cultures, which informed the precise structures that each discrete the historical'questions of how this occurred; questions 'about the means of"
New World Pan-African culture assumed. 4
transmission, translation/and'recuperation of the ensuing difference". N e v e r -
1
theless, this topos functions as a sign of the disrupted wholeness of an A f r i -
Of the music, myths, and forms of performance that the African brought
can system of meaning and belief that black- slaves recreated' from memory,
to the Western Hemisphere, I wish to discuss one specific trickster figure that
preserved by oral narration, improvised- u p o i i i n ritual—especially i n the
recurs with startling frequency jr. black mythology i n Africa, the Caribbean,
rituals of the repeated oral narrative—and willed to. .their own subsequent
and South America. This figure appears i n black cultures with such frequency
generations, as hermetically sealed and encoded charts of cultural descent.
that we can think.of i t as. a repeated theme or topos. Indeed, this trickster
I f the existence of;such trace'able topoi'seems remarkable, i t also seems r e -
:
tcJj)os--not only seems to have survived the bumpy passage to the New World,
markable that scholars have only begun "to explicate them systematically i n
'but i t appears even today i n Nigeria, Benin, Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, and the United
this century. '•
States. Within New W o r l d African-informed cultures, the presence of this
topos, repeated with variations as circumstances apparently dictated, attests This topos that recurs throughout black oral narrative tradition's and
to shared belief systems maintained for well over three centuries, remarkably, contains a primal scene of instruction for the act of interpretation is'that of
by sustained vernacular traditions. We can trace this particular topos u l t i - the divine trickster figure of Yoruba mythology, Esu-Elegbara/ This curious
mately to the Fon and.Yoruba cultures of Benin and Nigeria. Its particular figure is called Esu-Elegbara i n Nigeria and Legba among the Fon in Benin.
configurations i n Western black cultures, separated by vast distances of space His New W o r l d figurations include E x i i i n Brazil, Echu-Elegua in" Cuba,
and time, and isolated by the linguistic barriers qf the Germanic and the Papa Legba (pronounced La-Bas) i n the pantheoii^of the loa of Vaudou of
Romance languages, testify to the fragmented unity of these black cultures Haiti, and Papa L a Bas i n the loa of Hoodoo i n the United States.; Because'-.
i n the Western Hemisphere. There can be little doubt that certain funda- I see these individual tricksters as related parts of a larger, unified figure;- J,-rr- j

7. 6 A Theory of the Tradition A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey 7
shall refer to them collectively as Esu, or as Esu-Elegbara. These variations
on Esu-Elegbara speak eloqueritlyqE an unbroken arc of metaphysical pre-
supposition and a pattern of .figuration shared, through, time and space among
certain black cultures in West Africa; .South. America, the Caribbean, and the
United States. These trickster figures, all aspects, or topoi of Esu, are funda-
mental, divine terms of mediatioh: as tricksters they, arc mediators, and their
mediations are tricks. I f thesDixic Pike leads, straight; to Guinea, then Esu-
Elegbara presides over its ].imiiiai:crossr()ad^ a sensory threshold barely p e r -
ceptible without access to'".tip'yernacuiar, a word taken, from the L a t i n ver-
naculus ("native"),;taken h i Muni from verna, ("slave born i n his master's r
house"). '''' ''S^lllilWHpiW '
5 : : ; WM f2-''
: :'A^. '•"•:
Each versitm ofi iisu.is the solo messenger of the gods (in Yoruba,
iranse), he v,dio i n t e r p r e t ^ the gods to man;: he who carries the
desires olvman to;tho;;gqds!^ of the crossroads, master of
style and. of .stylus, " the^phiulic' god of generation and; fecundity, master of
that.elusive, mystical Intfricr'iliat separates the divine world-from the profane.
Frequently, characterized possessed'by his enor-
mous, penis; linguistically..Esu;,is the; ultimate copula, connecting truth with
understanding, ttio :sac'r^ profane,; t e x t . w i t h interpretation, the
word (as a forni of the verb / « 7 ; e ) t h a t links a subject with its predicate. He
r
connects the grammar t)f divinatibn with its rhetorical structures. I n Yoruba Figure 2> Esu-Elegbara. From the author's collection, Photo by Sarah Whitaker.
mythology, Esu is said,to limp as be walks, precisely because of his mediating
function: his legs are of different lengths because he keeps one anchored i n
the realm of the gods while the other rests i n this, our human world.
The Fon call Legba "the divine, linguist," he who speaks all languages,
Scholars have studied- these, figures of. Esu, and each has found one or
he Who interprets the alphabet of M a w u to nian and to the other gods.
two characteristics of this mutable.figure upon,which to dwell, true to,the
Yoruba sculptures of Esu almost always include a calabash that he holds i n
.nature of the trickster. A partial list of these,qualities might include indi-
8
his hands. I n this calabash he keeps ase, the very ase with which Olodumare,
Ividuality, satire, parody*.-, froriyjjyfiagic, indeterminacy, open-endedness, ambi-
the supreme deity of the Yoruba, created the universe. We can translate ase
:guity, sexuality, chance, uncertainly, disruption and reconciliation, betrayal
i n many ways, but the ase used to create the universe I translate as "logos,"
'and loyalty, closure and disciQsure,;.enc But i t is a m i s -
as the word as understanding, the word as the audible, and later the visible,
take to,focus, on. one of these;qualities as predominant. Esu possesses all of
sign of reason. Aseis'moh weighty, forceful, .and action-packed than the
these.characteristics,, plus a plethora of others which, taken together, only
ordinary word. I t is the word with irrevocability, Reinforced with double as-
begin; to^present an idea of the} complexity of. this classic figure of mediation
suredness and undaunted authenticity. This' probably explains why Esu's
1
and of the. unity of opposed forces. .. J ;
mouth, from which the audible word proceeds, sometimes appears double;
. Esu's;.'various characteristics'..are gleaned from several sources: what the
Esu's discourse, metaphorically,, is double-voiced. Esu's'mastery of 'ore gives
Yoruba.call iho Orlki Esu, the narrative praise poems, or. panegyrics, of. Esu-
h i m an immense amount of power; aye makes Esu "lie who says so and does
Elegb9raj'<|fc|.S^«;Ifo> the H a divination verses;, the.lyrics of "Esu. songs";
so," as inscribed i n a canonical 0r/fa'£.rw. [See Figures 9,10,11.]'" '.
8 .
and the traditional prose narratives i n which- are encoded the myths of origin
Ase is an elusive concept, and thus its translations vary. Part of orie" of
of the ,uniyers;e,,,of-.the gods, and of human beings' relation to the gods and
1
the canonical Odu, "The Story of Osetua," informs us that ase is power:'
their place;within.the cosmic order. M u c h of Esu's literature concerns the
origin, the^riatjireygrid the function of interpretation and language use "above"
Ase spread and expanded on earth: •-
•
Hint,of ordinary..language. For Esu is the Yoruba figure of the meta-level of
Semen became child, •
formal language;; use, of the ontological and epistemological status of figura-
Men on sick bed got up, ~
llve language and its interpretation. -The literature of Esu consists to a rer
A l l the world became pleasant,
nntrknblo degree.of direct; assertions about the.levels of linguistic ascent that
I t became powerful. ^'-;
0 : ""'.'•'' ••'•-...
»epnriU0 literal from figurative modes of language use. 7

8. 8 A Theory of the Tradition A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey
is* A
Figure 3. Esu-Elegbara. From the-author's collection. Photo by Sarah Whitaker,,; Figure 4. Esu-Elegbara. From the author's collection. Photo by Sarah Whitaker.
a text, so too is i t appropriate for the literary critic to name the methodologi-
.But power somehow lacks the force,to convey the multiple significations of
cal principles of the interpretation of black texts Esu-'tufunaalo, literally "one'
ase. The calabash that Esu carries (Ado-iran), presented to h i m by Olorun,
who unravels the knots of E s u . " Esu is the. indigenous black metaphor for.
11
contains "the power which propagates-itself.-' I n this calabash Esu carries
the iiterary^critic,..and'.Esu-'tufunaalo is,the study of methodological p r i n c i -
ase. It.is this ase, "controlled and represented by Esu, which mobilizes each
ples., of interpretation itself, ,or what 'the literary, critic...does...Esu-'tufunaalo
:
and every element i n the system, ' as Juana and Deoscoredes dos Santos
-
is the.secular analogue of i f a d i v i n a t i p n , and densely m e t a -
conclude. Ase, i n other words, is the force of coherence of process itself, that
phorical system.of sacred mterpretation, thatthe Yoruba i n Nigeria have c o n -
which makes-a system asystem. M y translation of ase as "logos" is, I think,
1
sulted for centuries, ,and which.they.,continue, to consult. Whereas the god
the closest analogue through which, cwe^can be. rendered m English, and in
Ifa is the next of divine w i l l , ^ u ^ i s ^ . - t ^ x t ' s ' i n t e r p r e t e r .(dnitum6),.'!ihe
English, we have merely borrowed the word from the Greek. As one baba-
one who translates, who explains, or 'who loosens knowledge.' " Indeed, Esu
IdWo^xA it, ase is "the light that crosses through the tray of the earth, the
would seem to have a priority, over Ifa i n .the. process of interpretation. Esu
firmament from one side to the other, forward and backward." I t was. this ase
not only, taught his friend the system; Esu also confirms or condemns the
that Olodumare used to. create the univers^ When the babalawo say that
"message" of Ifa. For this reason, i t is often said i n Ifa poetry that
Orunmila acts with the ase of Esu, it is the logos that is implied.
10
Esu's most direct Western kinsman, is Hermes. Just as Hermes' role as • O taseEsu bonu. - ' ;
messenger and interpreter for. the gods-lent his name readily to hermeneu- (He [Ifa] borrowed Esu's ase and put it in his own mouth to give a mes-•
- tics, our word for the study of methodological principles of interpretation of sage to the supplicant.) 12

9. 10 A Theory of the Tradition A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey 11
mmfM
— 4s * i .
t
Figure 6. Opon Ifa. From the collection of Robert Fams Thompson. Photo by
Sarah Whitaker. ..•
Although this is not the place for a full explication of the inner principles
of interpretation shared'by tttese systems of divination from West Africa to
L a t i n America, precisely because of Esu's role i n this African myth of o r i -
gins of interpretation.'!^ is instructive to explain, albeit painfully briefly, the
system that Esu created and taught to his friend, the god l i a . I n African and
L a t i n American mythology, Esu, as I have suggested, is said to have taught
Ifa how to read the signs formed b y the sixteen sacred palmnuts'.; The Opon
Ifa, the carved wooden divination tray used, i n the art^qfjjmterpretation,
Figure 5, Esu-Elegbara. From the author's collection. Photo by Sarah Whitaker. represents a trace of this priority of Esu i n the process of interpretation by
containing at the center, of its upper perimeter a carved image of Esu h i m -
self, meant to signify his relation to the.act of interpretation, which we can
translate either as itumo (literally "to untie or unknot knowledge") or as
Esu, as'the Yoruba say, is "the path to Jia, and his image often appears at
iyipada (literally "to turn,around" or "to translate"). That which we call
the center of the upper perimeter of the Ifa divining board. [See Figure 6.]
close reading, moreover, the Yoruba call Didafa (literally "reading the signs"). _
Ifa consists of the sacred texts of the Yoruba people, as does the Bible
Above all else, Esu, as the originator of this uniquely African mode of
for Christians', biit i t also contains the commentaries on these fixed texts, as
;
reading, is the:Yoruba figure of,indeterminacy itself, ayese ayewi,.ot ailemo,
does the Midr'ash. Its system of interpretation terns' ripon a marvelous c o m -
literally "that which we cannot know." I f Esu is a repeated topos, for my
bination of gepmaricy and textual 'exegesis, i n which sixteen palm nuts'are
purposes he is also a trope, a word, that has come to be used i n Yoruba
"dialed" Sixteen times," and their configurations or signs then read and trans-
discourse i n figurative senses far removed from its literal denotations. I f
i t e d into: the appropriate, fixed literary verse that the numerical signs sig-
1 1
we examine.some of the primal myths of origins i n which.Esu defines, his
nify,, These'visual sighs are known i n the Yoruba as "signatures of 'an 6du,"
metaphoric uses for black literary criticism, we shall be able to speculate on
mid each signature the babalawo, or priest* translates by reading or reciting
Esu's relation to his functional.equivalent in^Afro-American mythic d i s -
:
His fixed verse text that the signature, signifies. These verse texts* whose
course: that oxymoron, the Signifying Monkey. , ; ,
mennings are lushly metaphorical, ambiguous, and enigmatic, function as
riddles, which the propitiate must decipher and apply as is appropriate to his Before, examining myths of the origin of Ifa divination, i t w i l l be useful to
or hor own quandary. consider, the figures the Yoruba employ to account for this system of oral ;:

10. A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey 13
ciple of the system itself. The voice of Ifa; the text, writes itself as a crypto=
g r a m „ E s u then assumes his role o f interpreter and implicitly governs the
process of translation of these written signs i n t o the o r a l verse of the Odu. .
One myth of Ifa accounts for the invention of. writing and helps.to explain
the priority that metaphors of written language; seem ..to have: among the
Yoruba: . - • •• i<H ' •
: : us • •
Olorun was the eldest of the deities, and the first child of the King of the
A i r (Oba Orufi). Some forty years afterward the King of the A i r had. a'
second son, Ela, who was the father of the diviners. I n 'the.'7«oF^(%, all
the Whitemen used to come to Ela to learn how.to,.read and,write,; and
r
in the evening his African children, the babalawo,"g'atfierect arourid.fiim
to memorize the Ifa verses and learn divination. Ifa taughtihem;f61 Write,
on their divining trays, which the Muslyhs..copied as their wooden writ-'
ing boards (wala), and the Christians copied as the slates used by.school
children and as books. (emphasis added)
13
The oppositions here—morning/evening, Whitemen/Africans*./reading. and
writing/memorizing and reciting, cryptographic/phonetic script—reveal .that ;
the Yoruba themselves felt i t necessary to account for the difference's b e -
tween traditional African forms of writing and those practiced b y "Muslims"
and "Whitemen." Significantly, the myth explains phonetic.scripts as copies
of the oral tradition, encoded in the cryptograms formed by the sixteen sacred
palm nuts of Ifa. •' •-•
Another myth, which Willem Bosman claims to have recorded i n the
latter decades of the seventeenth century i n Asante, offers a radically differ-
ent account of the absence of w r k i % among the Africans' and'its presence
among the Europeans. While we shall return to Bosnian's myth in. Chapter 4,
i t is instructive to .consider how writing figures as. ah opposition within its
structure. God created the races of man but.created (he African first. Because
of his priority, the African had, first election between knowledge of the arts
and sciences, or writing, and all the gold in the earth. The African, because
of his avarice, chose the gold,': precisely because of his avarice, the African
was punished by a curse: never would Africans master the fine art of r e a d -
Figure:<?'r Opelev From the authors collection. P/ioro by Sarah Whitaker. ing and writing. This myth, oddly enough, is remarkably compatible with
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European speculations on the absence,
of writing among Africans and its significance. For, without the presence of
interpretation!*Figures'of: writingtrecur i n descriptions of Ha. Ifa is frequently writing as the visible sign of'reason, the Africans could not demonstrate their
called "scribe" or* "clerk," or "one who writes books" (akowe', a-ko-iwe). "innate" mental equality with the European and hence were doomed to a
:
Ha-wrote'for.his-fellow gods,-'and.'taught each babalawo to write the figures perpetual sort of slavery until such mastery, .was demonstrated. F o r the
of Ifa on h i S ' t r a y o f divination! Ifa speaks or interprets on behalf of all the i Yoruba, nevertheless, i f not the Asante of the. Gold Coast, phonetic Scripts
gods through the act of divination. Ifa, however, can only speak to human were derivative, shadow imitations of the prior form of inscription,; that is
beings^by inscribing'the language of the gods-onto the divining tray i n visual (manifested i n I f a. . ..
stgns'thaMhe-fra&atow reads- aloud m the language of the lyrical poetry
1 The Yoruba myth of the origins of interpretation is relevant, to the use;
called are. Curiously enough, the oral literature is described i n chirographic of Esu as the figure of the critic and is helpful in'explaining the.presence of
metaphors: Ifa's process o f oral narration is likened to writing. This quirk, of a monkey in Latin American versions of this primal myth. I t is the presence.^
representation gives Ifa a richness that suggests a central hermeneutical prin- of the monkey in the Yoruba myth, repeated with a difference inf Cuban...

11. 14 A Theoiy of the Tradition A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey 15
versions, which stands as the trace of Esu i n Afro-American myth, a trace Esu clearly has priority i n the'art of interpretation. I n other; myths of. the
that enables us to speculate freely on the functional equivalence of Esu and origins of Ifa, Esu both teaches mid wills the system to his.fricncC This e x -
his Afro-American descendant, the Signifying M o n k e y . 14 plains why the Yoruba say that "Esu is the path (or route) to I f a . " . A canoni-
Frobenius's account of the myth, "given to me," he tells us, "by a dweller cal narrative, "Esu Taught Orunmila H o w to Divine," also stresses Esu's
on the border of Kukurukuland," is one of the fullest. Frobenius translates importance:
Esu as "Edshu" or "Edju." His text follows:
Esu had taught Ifa how to'divine, with Lv'thi.vway, Ifa became very
important as.the'xommunication link be^wn '&ett'.ahd the Orisas. The
r,
Once upon a time the Gods'.were very hungry. They did not get enough Irunmoles [earth spirits], who numbered two hundred and one, .were jeal-
to eat from their wandering sons on the face of the earth. They were dis- ous of Ifa, but they could not harm him because-Esu was always; orLhand
contented with each other and quarreled. Some of'them went forth to to fight on Ifa's behalf.
1!! '-'^M-i^^.
hunt. Other GoAs-j.the' Olbkun in particular, wanted to go fishing; yet, a l -
though; one antelope arid one fish were caught, these did not last long. Legba retains this priority i n the F o n myths. :M:0':i:;:fi jf*$M0K:-:^fi: ••'•
Now their descendants' had forgotten them, and they asked themselves ..- Melville Herskovits suggests" that this is. so primarily,to allow human
how they, were to. get their sustenance from men again. Men no longer beings.".'away out' of a supernaturally willed dilemma." A n d that: way o u t -
made them burnt-offerings'; arid the Gods wanted meat. So Edju set but.
He asked, Yemayirfor something with which to regain man's goodwill. is offered by a celestial trickster, who is the youngest; sofiibif;iheiGreator.
Yemaya said: "You will have no success. Shankpanna has scourged them I n Dahomey, as hi most of West Africa, the youngest son is.held to be "
:
with pestilence, bul:they d6 not come and make sacrifice to him; he will
: ! the most astute in the family. Though Fa, who is destiny, is,of (he great- £
' kill them' all, but they wiJi not bring him food.Shango struck them dead est importance, ihc trickster, Legba, comes even bcforc')?a, .....V [In]
with the lightning which'he sent upon them, but they do hot trouble them- . dealing with the ..Supernatural officialdom, a man can, by-winning the.'-,
selves about him or bring'him things to eat. Better turn your thought to favor of Legba,.mollify an angered; deity and set aside liis..vengeance. .; . 17
• • something else. Men do not fear death. Give them something so good
While Herskovits gives a practical, or functional, explanation, for Le.gba's role
that they will yearn. for> it: aftd, therefore, want to go on living." Edju
;
in .interpretation,' both Ifa and-.Fa systchis have inscribed, this hierarchy
went further on. He said to'himself: "What I cannot get from Yemaya,.
Orungan will give mo.".He. went to him. Orungan said: " I know why you within their myths of origin, arid they have done, so for hertiicneu'dcal r e a -
sons. • . . . . ; :.^Mff?f':t?f f-Mffif^f tS;:^$£&'-'£M:
.-. are come. The sixteen,Gods are ahungered. They must now have some-
."' thing which shall bVgood'.'I know of. such a thing. I t is a big thing made . The roles of Ksu and of ;lhe Monkey, i n several accounts of. the myth,
of sixteen palm-hut's'j.'.If youget 'them and learn their meaning,. you will are crucial: F o r reasor.s extremely cii/Iicult to. reconstruct,; the monkey b e -
once more gain the goodwill of mankind." Edju went to where the palm- ',, came, through a displacement i i i African myths in. the New. -World, a;central'
trees were. The monkeys gave him sixteen nuts. Edju looked at these, but character - in this crucial scene of instruction/-In.:'the curious, manner r e -
did not know what to do with them: -The monkeys said to him: "Edju, do peated;: throughout; this transmission process from Africa to the. -Western
:
you know what to do with, the'nuts? We will counsel you; You got the Hemisphere, one structural clement that appears :to bo m i n o r - t o judge from
sixteen nuts by guile. Now, go round the world.and ask for their meaning subsequent versions taken from Yoruba /;«/)«/«H>O—became a"hiiijor character
everywhere* -You will hear sixteen.sayings:,ih:each of the sixteen places. i n the surviving oral variation i n a New W o r l d black culture.' Lydia Cabrera's
Then go back, to the Gods. Tell men what you yourself have learned, and
account of this myth within Afro-Cuban mythology makes the central role
then, men will also learn once more, to fear you." .
;
of the Monkey apparent:
• Edju did as he.was told. He went to the sixteen places round the.
;
.. world. He went back into the sky. . .... . I n some of the Elegua [Elegbara] tales, he.is portrayed as the first inter-
. Edju. told the Gods what he had learned himself. The Gods spake: preter, responsible for teaching or uncovering the art of divination to
. " I t is .we]i.''^Then the Gods hnparfed. their knowledge to their descen- Oru.ba [Ifa] while accompanied by Moedun [the Monkey] and the tree—,
dants,' and'how men can know the will of the Gods every day, and what a palm tree growing in the garden of Orungan [the midday sun]—as well
will come to pass in the future. When men saw that all evil things would as being the messenger of Odu, the divination seeds. The reference is to ' •
' happen in the days to come, and what they would be able to escape by the cowry'shells, the means of interpretation of the babalochas'and the
offering"sacrifices, they began to slaughter animals again and burn them iyaloches, Bake Elegua is associated with this orisha: "he controls' the
for the Gods. This was the way in which Edju brought the Ifa (palm- largest number of cowry shells." 18 •• •• -
• !
- nuts) down:to men, When he went back, he stayed with Ogun, Shango
. and Obatalla,- and these four watched to s^e what men would do with the While Moedun could possibly derive from the'-Yoruba O/MO. ( " c h i l d , o f " )
kernels.'
5 edun ("a type of monkey"), more probably i t derives. from, the, Yoruba ;

12. 16 A Theory of the Tradition A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and. the Signifying-Monkey 17
tive poems) i n a well-known Fon narrative entitled "Why Monkey D i d N o t
Become M a n . " The Monkey also surfaces i n relation to divination i n a
:
second canonical Fon narrative, "Monkey's Ingratitude: Why One Does N o t
Deceive'the D i v i n e r . " B u t the direct conjunction of the Monkey and Esu
10
seems to be confined to this myth of origins of the process of interpretation
itself. The Monkey, furthermore, is one of Esu's bynames, as i n the f o l l o w -
ing Oriki Esu:
King of Ketu,
The Monkey has no lamp at Akesan, •
M y mother's money its eyes serve as lamps all over the farm, . .
Product of today's hustle and bustle •
Offshoot of tomorrow's hustle and bustle
The evil eye has stunted Monkey's growth
They call him child of no means and position •
Let him not consort with people on Alaketu's street ;
Let him not bring about the curse more effective than poison. '20
( T w o of Esu's physical characteristics are his extraordinarily dark color
and his tiny size.) Perhaps even more telling is the Fon myth, "The First
Humans." Legba, acting without knowledge of ..Mawu, the creator, trans-
forms two of the earth's four primal beings, into.monkeys. I t is from these
two monkeys that all monkeys descended. Legba, .therefore, is the father of
the M o n k e y .
21
There is a fascinating conflation of the Monkey and Esu i n Afro-Cuban
mythology. This occurs i n the figure of the guije or jigue,. a black trickster
topos whose identity has not yet, to. my knowledge, been satisfactorily d e -
fined.. The literature of the guije or jigue,consists of two types..In the first,
the guije is depicted as a small black man, as. i n the o r a l narrative, " E l guije
de la Bajada," collected by Salvador Bueno^ i n his Leyendas cabanas. The
two signal physical characteristics of Esu, as.I have said above,, are his e x -
tremely dark color, and his tiny size. The other form that the guije assumes,
generally i n poetry rather than.in narrative, is the jigue, or.monkey. Teofilo
Radillo's poem, "The Song, of the. Jigue," helps us to resolve the mystery
of this conflated trickster's origins.22
"The jigue," Radillo informs us, "was..born i n Oriente" province, that
curious Cuban site, or cauldron, at which Yoruba culture met European •
mo, the first person-singular pronoun ( " I " ) , used with past arid continuous
Hispanic culture to produce a novel mixture:
tenses. Moedun; then,''can be translated as " I who was/am the Monkey."
1
I n Yoruba, furthermore, "monkey"; (owe) and proverb or riddle (owe) are The jigue was born in Oriente.
virtual lK)monynis. . Wh.at' is clear "is that Esu's role as the first interpreter
:
The jigue came from the waters . . .
survived the.'Middle Passage accompanied by both the Monkey and the By the edge of the lagoon,
tree i n which the monkeys lived and from which they selected the sixteen while the children bathe.
palm nuts that became the sacred characters of^Ifa' divination. Many c o n -
temporary statues of E x u i n Brazil depict h i m with both a large erect penis i _ His emergence from the waters suggests his, African origins,;-Among the
and a long tail; '""•'•'' jigue's physical characteristics are his dark col6r,-vhis pointed teeth, and his
'•"• To be sure, the Monkey appears i n other African narratives and even long hair, the color and sort of hair that are characteristic descriptions-^
appears with the L i o n and the Elephant (as i n the Signifying Monkey narra- of Esu: * •>..

13. 18 A Theory of the Tradition A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey 19
A dark jigue is watching a swinging branch of a tree (as a monkey would) to escape torrential waters,
with a great length of; hair . . . • only to lose one's grip and to tumble into the water, "drowning," as the poem
His teeth are pointed states, "for the sake of nganga." The poem reads:
and his intentions are sharp.
jigue who frightens children
The jigue & eyes, in addition, are large and penetrating, as are Esu's eyes:
1
who hangs by the white girl
. Mother, I have seeri a jigue by the edge of the river
yesterday/,When I was bathing • where night is bathing
in the stil waters:: ; . : ;
at the tune of the moon
He was black:,, and glared at me curling around the silver light /
v,nth w h a t : ; , / . I could not tell,
The significance of nganga suggests a multiplicity of meanings, each of which*
. may" have, been eyes ofiivc coals.
informs the KiKongo-Cuban survival. Most dramatically of all, Rodillo f i g -
Most important,, the^ / ^ e J i m d e r w e n t a transformation of the most profound ures the nganga "forever floating over the waves of water" like a y^aiidering
sort i n his passage i f o m Africa to the New W o r l d . Where once he was a signifier, suggesting perpetually its range of meanings from its Bantu roots,
monkey, fie emerged .from the rite of passage—or, more truly, a rite de even—or especially—in its New W o r l d setting. We may take .this soft of p e r -
marges (as we might think of the Middle Passage)—as Esu, or Echu: petual, or wandering, signification as an emblem of the process of cultural
transmission and translation that'recurred with startling frequency when A f -
/ 'Tfie.j^
rican cultures encountered New World-European cultures and yielded a
and brought there from Africa,
novel blend.
'.'•'• where ho had been a iiioakey: the last
' • monkey The poem's last stanza comes to bear, directly on the relationship among
the monkey who drowned Esu, the monkey, and the interpreter that I am attempting to establish:
i'.- for the sake'pf the nganga— >• : .--,.
: ,
Jigue-monkey,
the n'gangii forever floating }•.>,:::•>•:[<.: .,-
monkey-jigue,-
over the waves of water-: •: • ' , •
•
nganga-jigue, : •" :
The jigue's connection with;; aj;'mpnkey is clear etymologically. Guije and jigue-nganga; '' ' •
::
jigue are/'derived from the Efik-Kjagbar.i word for "monkey," jiweP'
These are represented as terms of equivalence:, "Jigue-monkey / monkey-
The etymology of nganga isY also suggestive. I n Kikor.go, nganga means
jigue" echoes the Cuban neologism.moedun,. from the. Yoruba;.meaning
one expert i n medicine of,magic,;;a'doctoro i n other words.
"I-monkey" and " I who am/.was. the monkey." "Nganga-Jigue" here sug-
Nganga means action, wo rk, /or; arrangemc'n f. A r i d nganga means to experi-
gests the identity between the monkey and the interpreter figure,- clearly an i n -
ence an attack of wrath, to cause pain/to reflect or to question. I n Kiswahili,
ng'ang'ama means to clutch hold of, as of a swinging branch or tree, while terpreter of the traditional sort, a trickster figure of the order of Esu, . .
ng'ang'ania means t o b e g earnestly", beseech, until one attains a desired end. , This conflated set of figures, now rendered, equivalent semantically and
I n a study of "Langue Congo" i n Cuba; Germain' de Granada defines nganga functionally, represents one who.has come from Africa to Cuba: .
as. a magical object. Most suggestively of all, however, Tulu K i a Mpansu you have'come from very far,
Buakasa'defmes nganga as "interpreter." * '' 2 gallopping over the waters
' As used i n Teofilo Radillo's "The Song of the Jigue," nganga could c o n - in dreams which arrived" •"•
note any number of these meanings':!"-:/- : ' "'' •'• muzzled to these shdres.-
:
the monkey who drowned The last two lines of this wonderfuLimage.form a marvelous figure of the.ini-
for the sake of the nganga— tiate who emerged at the Western pole of the Middle Passage; the initiate s u r -
the nganga forever floating vived, dreams intact, but the drearns .are "muzzled to these shores." , . , .
over the waves of water- . But what, or who, can emerge, intact from such traumatic crossings, iri r e -
I t could'refer to; a magic object, or an interpreter (doctor) of the traditional sponse to the passionate call of the pnginary 'language, figured by the -drum?
sort; or, more' suggestively; nganga could-imply the victim of an attack of
1 Only the black trickster: •:..-.,, ••->
wrath: or one insistent: on- questioning the received, or the imposed, order. I n One playful jigue emerges
a more literal sense, the Kiswahili root of ng'ang'ama suggests one clutching as the drum calls; »

14. 20 A Theory of the Tradition A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey 21
as the drum bursts it is said suit this text i n attempts to decipher their destiny, or fate. What the supplicant'
that many jigues dance. hears read to him, i n "the signature of Odu," is neither a literal revelation of
his fate nor a set of commands that can be put into practice to appease, or r e -
Esu is also a highly accomplished dancer, a mask-in-motion, who signifies i n
dress, the human being's curse of the indeterminacy or uncertainty of fate.
ritual by his phallic dance of generation, of creation, of translation, •
Rather, the supplicant hears read by the babalawo a series of lyrical poems
Who, ultimately, is the jigue?;
that are so metaphorical ah'd so ambiguous that. they, may be classified as e n i g -
The jigue while there, in the forest, mas, or riddles, which must be read or interpreted, but which, nevertheless,
was a monkey, the. last monkey. . . . have no single determinate meaning. The supplicant,. .the reader as.it were,
1
and drowned 'to float today must produce meaning by stopping the babalawo as he chants an_.e.ye, which
in the"sleeping'waters of legends in some way strikes the supplicant as being relevant to his.dilemmav.Then* the
. .:. which cradled a whole.race, babalawo interprets the poem for his client and prescribes :.the.3 appropriate
Drowning, i n Africa when" the'slavers stole our people, the trickster figure can sacrifices. Fairly frequently, the client cannot recognize his situation: i n the
"float today / i n the sleeping waters of legends," legends i n which are i n - metaphorical language of the poem, despite the fact that Ifa has-ihscribed the
scribed the New World African's metaphysical origins, legends whose m e a n - person's fate into the appropriate Odu, signified by the patterns. fprmed by
ings and perpetuation "cradled a%h'Ple face." Who, finally, is the jigue? the palm nuts. " v.-.;,.
Ifa is the god of determinate meanings, but his meaning, must, be, rendered
. . . - Monkey-jigue, by analogy. Esu, god pf indeterminacy, rules this interpretive.process; he is
jigue-monkey,
the god of interpretation because he embodies the ambiguity of figurative l a n -
"nganga-jigue,
guage, Although he allowed his friend Ifa to rule and name the texts of the
jigue-nganga!
tradition, i t is Esu who retains dominance over the act of interpretation p r e -
The jigue is the monkey,, and the monkey is Esu, and both are doctors of cisely because he signifies the very divinity of the figurative. F o r Ifa,, one's
interpretation. The three are trickster figures of the same order, the herme- nought meaning is patently obvious; i t need only be read. Esu. decodes the
neutical order. . figures. -.; •-.
While we lack areheologieal and historical evidence to explain the v a l o - I f Ifa, then, is our metaphor for the text itself, then Esu is p u r metaphor
rized presence of the Monkey, i n Cuban mythology, i n the textual evidence, for the uncertainties of explication, for the open-endedness pf every literary
on the other hand, we commonly encounter Esu with his companion, as d e - text. Whereas I f a represents clpsure, Esu rules the process.,._pf..disclosure, a
picted even i n visti'altfep^^e'ntations'-'o£ Esu-. As Alberto del PPZO writes,
;
process that is never-ending, that is dominated by multiplicity;- Esu is d i s -
"Echu Elegua frequently* h a s ^ his side," I f we examine
25
course upon a text; i t is the process of interpretation that he rules., This.is the
the..general-- charactefistics' oi--'EsusKaSrderived • from 'the Oriki Esu and as
i message of his primal scene of instruction with.his friend.Ka. I f Ksu. stands
classed.; together u n d e r thefrubric:',oii-"rhetorical• principles," the Signifying for discourse upon a text, then his Pan-African kinsman, the Signifying M o n -
Monkey emerges from his mysteripbsly-beclouded Afro-American origins as key, stands for the rhetorical strategies of which, each literary,text consists.
Esu's first-qqusin, i f not his American heir. If'is as if Esu's friend, the M o n - For-the Signifying Monkey exists as the great trope of Afro-American d i s -
key, left his side at Havana and swam to New Orleans. The Signifying M o n - course,., and .the trope pf tropes, his language of Signifyin(g), is his verbal
key remains as the trace of Esu,.,the.sple,survivor, of a disrupted partnership, sign i n the Afro-American tradition.
i.Both are tropes,that: serve asViransfefehcesJn a.system aware of the nature We can summarize the importance of these tricksters to theory i n three
. of .language and its interpretation.;,-, ...... ' :
related ways. First, they and the myths i n which they are characters function
, . W h a t is the importance.pf-.thesc apparently related tricksters and their as focal points for b l a c k theories about formal language use. The figure of
myths to literary criticism? Perhaps this w i l l be clearer if we return briefly to writing appears to be peculiar to the myth of Esu, while the figure of speak-
Ifa divinatidn and to a fuller discussion of Esu's role. I t is convenient to think ing, of oral discourse densely structured rhetorically, is peculiar, to the myth
of the Y6ruba godTfa as' tfie texf o f divination, who gave to divination not
ij ; i i : of the Signifying Monkey. Here, the vernacular tradition names the great o p -
only his namo'biit the 256 Odu as'well as the thousands of poems that c o m - position of its formal literary counterpart, the tension between the oral and
prise t£e_se p
fi body of lyrical poetry the written modes of narration that is represented as finding a vpice i n w r i t -
stands as the verbal,' litefaryj of''textual analogue pf 256' cryptpgrams that ing. A s figures pf the duality of the voice withih-the tradition, Esu and'his
: can be formed by the babalawo as he manipulates the sixteen 'sacred palm friend the Monkey manifest themselves i n the search-for a voice that is d e -
nuts. This, vast array of poetry, exists as the separate stanzas of one extensive picted i n so very many black texts. The tension between them surfaces-in the'
,, text; which we might think of profitably as the text of Ifa. Human beings con- double-voiced discourse so commonly found here. This tension between the ,

15. 22 A Theory of the Tradition A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey 23
oral and the written plays itself out i n one form as the two dominant n a r r a -
tive voices that serve as counterpoint i n texts such as Jean Toomer's Cane. I n
another form, i t surfaces as the free indirect discourse of what I am calling
the speakerly text, i n which third and first person, oral and written voices, o s - Akinf emia, man with many names.
cillate freely~wlthin one structure, as i n Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Oriki Esu.™
Were Watching God. These tensions are figured i n the myths of Esu and the
I will write Arabic and say Muslim prayers
Monkey.
I will write Arabic and say Muslim prayers
Second, in the myths of Esu and the Monkey the tradition defines the role When the festival comes, I ' l l worship my deity [Esu]
of the figurative. Polemical traditions seem to valorize the literal. Pragmatics I will write Arabic and say Muslim prayers. e
argues that i t cannot he otherwise; the vernacular tradition, however, under- Oriki Esu.™
cuts this penchant at its deepest level, that of underlying rhetorical principle.
The myths of origins of the tradition privilege both the figurative and the a m - The Oriki Esu, the Odu, ese, and the numerous myths i n which Esu figures
biguous. The determinate meanings often sought i n criticism run counter to consist of a densely lyrical poetic diction that commands the attention of the
the most fundamental values of the tradition as encased i n myth. I n this sense, practical critic. B y explicating these vernacular literary forms, I wish to u n -
the literal and the figurative are locked i n a Signifyin(g) relation, the myths derscore the linguistic self-reflexiveness that inscribes, in what we might think
and the figurative Signified upon by the real and literal, just as the vernacular of as the literature of Esu, this trickster god's preserve as the architect of i n -
tradition Signifies upon the tradition of letters, and as figures of writing and terpretation, as the keeper of ase, the logos, as the "divine linguist of M a w u , "
inscription are registered, paradoxically, i n an oral literature. This is another as Herskovits put i t .
example of the presence of the dual voice. The notion of double-voiced d i s - Of the topoi of Esu, the Yoruba myths of Esu-Elegbara and the Fon
course, related to M i k h a i l Bakhtin's theory of narrative but also indigenously myths of Legba contain the most explicit assertions about nature and f u n c -
African, comprises the crux of the method I use for the close readings of tions of formal language use. To identify and analyze these assertions is to
Afro-American texts i n this book's final four chapters. The Afro-American begin to account for a black theory of literature and its interpretation, on l e v -
concept of Signifyin(g) can be conveniently introduced here as formal r e v i - els of linguistic meta-ascent, as inscribed i n the black vernacular traditions.
sion that is at all points double-voiced. Let us descend, once again, into the shadowy realm of myth, to ascertain the
The third conclusion that we can draw from the myths of Esu and the black tradition's fundamental idea of itself, buried or encoded i n its •primal
Monkey concerns the indeterminacy of interpretation. Esu is a principle of myths—ambiguous, enigmatic, profoundly figurative, complex rhetorical struc-
language, of written discourse particularly. H e is " a l l metaphor, all ambigu- tures—which seem to have been scattered through several concealed f r a g -
ous oracle," as Robert Pelton has said. The most famous myth about h i m
20
ments, as i f to protect its own code from (mis) appropriation.
is read as a story about indeterminacy. I t is inscribed i n the well-known c a - As I stated earlier i n this chapter, the trickster figure's relation to destiny,
nonical tale of "The T w o Friends," which I shall discuss below. Indetermi- and indeed his priority over destiny, is inscribed i n his role as the guiding
nacy, then, is accounted for by the vernacular tradition, as an unavoidable as- force of interpretation itself. The primal god of the Fon is a Janus figure; one
pect of acts of interpretation. These three general observations summarize, i n side of its body is female and is called M a w u , while the other side is male
the broadest sense, the self-reflexive functions that Esu serves i n Yoruba d i s - and is called Lisa. Mawu's eyes form the moon; Lisa's eyes form the sun.
course. I n the second section" oF'this chapter, I wish to show i n some detail Accordingly, Lisa rules the day and M a w u rules the night. The seventh son
how the Yoruba vernacular underscores these functions and then to suggest of Mawu-Lisa is Legba. Legba is the w i l d card of Fon metaphysics, the w a n -
the relationship of this theory of criticism to some common assumptions of dering signifier. While Legba's six siblings preside over the six domains of
pos(structural literary theory. I am concerned i n this half of the chapter to r e - heaven and earth, Legba rules over all. As the earth priests' creation myth
veal the grammar of the tradition before proceeding to discuss the rhetorical concludes, "Hence Legba was chosen to represent M a w u everywhere i n the
forms of which the tradition consists. world of men and gods." 20
This mode of subtle domination and omnipresent, simultaneous repre-
sentation, curiously enough, the Fon reinforce by attributing to Legba the
role of linguist. The F o n earth priests' myth of origins describes Legba's l i n -
i guistic function i n the following manner:
To Legba was assigned the role of linguist between the kingdoms of gods
and gods, and gods and men. Whereupon, in addition to the knowledge

16. 24 A Theory of the Tradition A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey 25
of the "language" of- Mawu-Lisa, he was given the knowledge of all the stance is the Text of Fa. The F o n render this complex and sophisticated sys-
"languages" spoken by the other gods in their separate dominions. There- tem of text and its determination i n the following way,- as spoken by a
fore i f any of the children of Mawu-Lisa, on earth or elsewhere, wish to bokono, a priest of Fa, to Melville Herskovits:; ••
address their parents or each other, they must transmit their messages
through Legba, for they can no longer communicate directly. Thus Legba We bokono take three things for our Mawu.. We take Mawu, or Fa, as ,
is everywhere; he is found even before the houses of vodu themselves, the author of man and his destiny. 'We take Legba. as. the son, the brother,
r
arid this is because all, living creatures must address themselves to him and the power of MaWu'and as Mawu herself..''.'.'!'- . F a is the writing of
before they can be understood by the-gods. 30
Mawu* which was turned over to Legba to make man. Therefore, we say
Fa is Mawu and Mawu is Fa. 38 1
That which the Fori call."the.Book of Fa," or "the System of Writing of the
Creator," in other words, can be read only by Legba, the sole agent of i n - Fa, we recall, is "a personification of the formulae of Mawu,-" as Herskovits
terpretation and hence mediation between man, on one hand, and the Book puts i t , or "Fa is the writing of M a w u , " as the Fon themselves put it. Legba
of Fate (i a),,:on the.other....Only Legba is able to read this text because of
?
is the linguist-messenger who reads the text of Fa,-.a text that remains u n -
the several stages-of mediation and translation that occur i n rapid succession read and unreadable without the agency of Legba. Because Legba can, i n -
i n Fa divination. Aisupplicant'squeryds answered by a cryptogram, the m a r k - deed must, be-propitiated with the most splendid sacrifices before, he, can be
ings made i n powder.on the divination•,tray. The priest next translates this beseeched, i t seems clear that even one's very fate is not inscribed inundelible
coded sign into its-appropriate Odu and recites the Odu's several parts until ink. Indeed, Legba's reading of the crucial texts of fate can be profoundly
the supplicant .asks.him.tojhalt. The. supplicant then attempts to, read his informed by the quality and nature of one's sacrifice. ... .
dilemma into, or out.of,,the. jungle of ambiguity that is the language of the The text, i n other words, is not fixed in any determinate sense; i n . one
Odu. R. E. Dennett,.writing i n At the Back of the Black Man's Mind, quotes sense, i t consists of the dynamic and indeterminate relationship between
the Yoruba scholar James, Johnson as saying that each Odu is comprised of truth on one hand and understanding on the other. Fa, as the writing; of
"roads," or "pathways," or "courses" (esc and.their, derivative.narratives), M a w u , can be thought of conveniently as the truth of a text, whereas Legba's
which lead the supplicants through the maze' of, figuration that is Esu's role is to effect and affect its understanding:-The relationship between truth
kingdom. . 81 ,..:^-mt and understanding yields our sense of meaning. Meanings, i n the Yoruba
Esu rules over, this; kingdom, this process of interpretation, from the toss and F o n systems of hermeneutics, can be both multiple and-indeterminate,
of the dice, through.each successive, translation/from one semiotic system to as underscored by the densely ambiguous and figurative language of which
the next: from cryptogram,; to. Odu, to its reading,.both i n a literal sense of the entire system consists. Legba governs the-indeterminacy of "meaning-for
speaking aloud and,in, a,metaphorical sense of analysis. As Peter M o r t o n - the Fon. If, as Geoffrey Hartman has argued, "Indeterminacy functions.as
Williams rightly concludes, "the. oracle replaces a dilemma.with an enigma;
i;
a bar separating, understanding^and truth," then we, can, at last, posit a site
i t was the duty of the diviners, at the king's court to resolve the enigma after over which Legba rules and in. which, he dwells. Legba,dwells,.in,.this_bar;
they had produced it, the king., needing, information and not riddles." The indeed, he, like indeterminacy, is this bar.. So, whereas the Fon say that Fa
Odu,, of course, are the oracle's.riddles, the. translations of the visual signs is the writing, of Mawu, we can say. that.Legba is,the indeterminacy of-the
made i n the sacred dust on. the, I f a t r a y of divinatiom.Bernard Maupoil, i n
!
interpretation of writing, and his traditional dwelling place- at.the crossroads,
his seminal work, La Ge'omancie a I'ancienne Cdte. des Esclaves, describes for the critic, is the crossroads of understanding and-truth. A n d of what- sort
this process as "an abstract-'.'indirect, and.deductive mode of interpreting or canclosurebe,.which.dwells atsuch.a crossroads? 84
revealing the- pastor the future." Because Legba's role as. messenger, as lord Interpretation for Esu;••• even-or especially-of the same text; the same
of exchange,- inscribes his. role,as interpreter, these abstract,-indirect .utter- Odu, is a continuous: project: "Reading," to cite Hartman somewhat i r o n i -
anees or riddles are his domain, from, which some sort of analogous mean- cally, is "a f o r m ' o f life," which can itself be read. Esu's life is a form-of
ing must be derived. Legba, then, stands as. the discursive, or textual, p r i n c i - reading texts i n motion, constantly variable. I am, of course, reading the.
ple, itself; as Robert Pelton concludes, Legba "is a-creator of discourse, for Yoruba and the Fon processes of reading, through the figure of E s u . 36
his every-movement is, iri T . S. Eliot's phrase, a 'raid on the inarticulate,' a B u t what sort of text is constantly variable, is a text i n motion?-Walter
foray, into the, formless,, which simultaneously gives shape to the dark and J. Ong passionately and persuasively argues i n Orality and Literacy that the
feTrsome. and-new,life to structure always in"clanger of becoming, a skeleton." English word text is, " i n absolute terms, more compatible etymologically,with
Legba is discourse and, as we shall see, discourse upon a text. 32
oral utterance than is 'literature,' which refers to -the letters etymologically/
Legba, like Esu, is the divine reader, whose interpretation of the Book of (literae) of the alphabet." Text is a satisfactory descriptive, etymologically
Fate determines precisely what this book says. The interpreter governs m e a n - at least, because of its L a t i n root texlus, past participle of iexere, "to weave."
ing because: he determines our understanding of the text, which i n this i n - Ong says that this sense of text has even been used i n oral cultures to describe