Olodumare — also Olorun, owner of the sky — is the supreme being, source of ashe and of all existence, and receives essentially no cult. There are no Olodumare temples, no priests, no images, no sacrifices, no festivals and no myths in which Olodumare acts as a character with motives and moods. Prayer may be directed there in extremity and the name appears constantly in ordinary speech and proverbs, but the working religion is conducted with the orisha, who are near, particular and negotiable. Scholars have argued about whether this counts as monotheism with intermediaries or as something the category does not fit, and the argument has had a political edge: nineteenth and twentieth-century writers, including Yoruba Christian scholars, sometimes emphasised Olodumare's supremacy to demonstrate that Yoruba religion was not primitive polytheism. The practical position is straightforward — you do not approach the owner of the sky directly about a business dispute.