The World of Eshú and Pomba Gira - страница 8

Eshu does neither good nor evil: he fulfils the orders we give him. He is seen as a playful and irresponsible child who enjoys creating confusion between us and the Orishas. What he does is our own responsibility because he does not distinguish between good and evil.

There are no religions or negative entities, but people with bad intentions who will do evil and people with good intentions who try to solve evil. The existence of both is necessary to balance the functioning of the universe.

Eshu is the universal magical agent, the envoy, the Orishas’ messenger: hence, he is the first to receive all offerings.

Before giving an offering to an Orisha you must first pay tribute and sacrifice to Eshu. If Eshu is relaxed and eating, he will be happy and then, he will allow you to perform the ceremony for the Orisha peacefully.

Eshu is the lord of the roads, the owner of the land production and everything related to fertilisation and productivity. Eshu spoke to the Orishas and told them that he would continue being their messenger but that he would treat humans differently: he would make them live with their fears and would scare them. He would become the devil for white people so that his own people would stop suffering slavery. He would strive with their emotions, suspicions, apprehensions, mistrust, turbulence and doubts so that his people could have a better existence. The Orishas reflected on those words and sent their Eshus to the Earth. According to the legend, Eshus became the devil for white people’s dark souls from then on.

Eshu is identified as the devil for Christians because the missionary priests found many difficulties, conflicts and problems when trying to impose their religion by force on slaves: too many gods and divinities for a people they were trying to subjugate.

Missionaries were forced to adapt to the whole Menina Pantheon. However, we must not forget that at the time Christians lacked a demon and thus, who better than Eshu to become their devil? Christians did not know Eshu and their own ignorance made them fear him; they did not even bother to find out that Eshu was the one who had more similarities with people and that all the requests made by slaves were related to their own life issues.

Humans fear what they do not know, and the dominant white feared the submissive black who worshiped the devil, since he protected them from injustice, infamy, and the absolutism of white people.