Ebo — the offering.
Divination names what is required and where it goes: a specific food at a crossroads, cloth in a river, an animal at a shrine, a number of cowries at the roots of a tree. Much of what is offered is then cooked and eaten by everyone present, which is the part outsiders miss — a great deal of ebo is a meal.
The mechanics of ebo repay attention because the popular image is wrong in several directions. The divination establishes what is out of balance and what will settle it, and the prescription is precise as to item, quantity, colour, location and timing — three pigeons, a white cloth, sixteen cowries, palm oil at a crossroads, honey at the river. Substituting requires further divination. Animal offerings are real and are one component among many; the great majority of prescriptions involve food, cloth, drink, money, or specified acts. Where an animal is offered, the meat is generally cooked and eaten by the assembled participants, which makes much of the practice a shared meal, and this is the aspect most consistently omitted from outside descriptions. Diaspora practice in Cuba and Brazil has attracted legal challenge on animal welfare grounds; in the United States the Supreme Court decided the question in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah in 1993, striking down ordinances aimed at Santería.
The same ground, other faiths
rites that share this one's ideasSign in to open the first thread. Everything here is attributed.