Esu Is Not Satan/Devil

When you are ignorant of your own culture and history, you are bound to eventually loose it. 

You can never have a true picture of your own culture if you allow others to tell you your history.

For so long the ignorant Yoruba populace have demonise and bastardise one of the most important deities (orisa) in Yoruba tradition and culture, ESU. They often make the erroneous claim that Esu is Satan, they often mistake the biblical VILLAIN, Lucifa/Satan/ Devil for Esu, who is a Yoruba god and HERO.

In Yoruba culture and belief, Esu is not associated with evil as portrayed by Christian narratives. Esu is a god in his own right just like Sango, Ogun, Osun among others. Esu is a fundamental orisha in Yorubaland and it is widely worshiped all over Yorubaland and among people of Yoruba ancestry all over the world.

Before Samuel Ajayi Crowther and his team translated the bible into Yoruba language, the idea that Esu is Satan was non-existing in the Yoruba society even among the Christian populations as at then. This false claim however started when the first set of Yoruba bible landed in the hands of Yoruba people.

When it came to finding equivalent names for Satan and Jesus in Yoruba; for Jesus, the name was Yorubanised to Jesu Kristi, but for the devil, the translators of the Yoruba bible chose an existing god in Yoruba belief, Esu. That unfortunate decision has haunted the understanding of Yoruba beliefs to this day.

The intentions of the translators is yet unclear, but it is most likely they know absolutely nothing of Yoruba culture, tradition and belief system or they were on a deliberate mission to bastardise and misrepresent the Yoruba traditional belief in order to appeal to the sensitivity of their slave masters.

According to Remi Oyeyemi (a journalist) "Esu, in Yoruba cosmology is not the Devil or Satan as being portrayed by Euro-Christian religious school of thought. Esu, in the authentic Yoruba concept, is the enforcer of the Will of Olodumare and not the equivalent of the Euro-Christian Devil/Satan who is out to undermine the work of the Almighty God."

Esu is an essentially protective, benevolent spirit who serves Olodumare, as a messenger between heaven and earth. Esu requires constant appeasement in order to carry out his assigned functions of conveying sacrifices and divining the future. To the Yoruba, Esu is the link between man and heaven. He is a strong god and he does not allow trouble or evil to be done to any of his subjects.

Esu is believed to have more than 200 names which stem out of his character and functions according to the Yoruba belief system. Some of these names are; 

Lagemo Orun (the sacred child of heaven)

Alaakalu (one whose greatness is manifested all over the place)

Esu Odara (one who can do and undo)

Ogiri oko (he who is as hard as a rock)

Elegbara (the mighty and powerful one)

Papawara (the quickest and fastest one)

Akeregbaye (small but in control of the whole world)

Onibode (the gate man)

Devil or Satan in Yoruba language can best be described as "Asika"(evil doer) which means someone with malevolent and evil intentions or an evil person.

On this note, it is high time we started to treat our culture and history with a sense of importance. It is time we rejected the idea of demonising our own culture. It is time we stopped relegating our tradition and elevating that of others.

We need to get our history right, we need to know our culture well and understand our tradition better, only then we can start to talk about moving forward. 

ESU IS NOT SATAN!!!

Elubeku Adisa Tobi

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