Osun of Osogbo and Osun in the New World: The mythological religious study of a Yoruba goddess

This thesis asks the question whether and to what extent Osun in the New World is the same as the Osun of the Old World. My argument is that the selected Yoruba myths studied in this dissertation prove that Osun in the Old and the New Worlds is the same divinity as the Osun of the New World. Our three areas of study are: myth as a form of oral literature for the Yoruba religious studies, the Osun annual festival as the season of celebration of her divinity, and the worship of Osun in the New World today. Earlier researches on Osun either limited themselves to Osun in Nigeria or solely concentrated on the personalities of Osun in the New World.;Myth forms a spiritual storyline which is useful for the descriptive theorist to work with. Empirical study has to test the hypothesis of compare and contrast the new nature of a religion. Myth, for instance, contains facts or statements about society and universe which is not accessible by ordinary observational techniques by itself There are various meanings in symbols, names, attributes and characters that appear in myth. Love, powers, passion, beautiful, seductive, young, mountains, running waters, jewelry, mirror, fans, gold, little bells, parrot, peacock, quail, clams, hawk, Thursday, yellow, green, number five, cake, oranges, cinnamon, honey, melon, Venus, Moon, bedroom, kitchen and many more are coded with meanings and messages that contribute to the continuation of Osun worship in the Old and the New World.;For the purpose of conciseness in this dissertation, Osogbo and other Yorubaland towns are hereafter referred to as the Old World. Cuba, Brazil, Trinidad, Jamaica, Haiti and other nations of Americas are henceforth referred to as the New World. These classifications are similar to the usage of the previous studies of the African and African-American religions.;The methodology applied in this study is called the descriptive structural approach to myth. Richard Mercer Dorson (1972), William Russell Bascom (1969, 1975), Saburi O. Biobaku (1973), Isidore Okpewho (1983, 1992), Graham Furness (1995) and Jan Vansina (1985, 2006) had successfully studied myths and religions. Irving Hexham and Karla Poewe studied the effects of myths in understanding cults and new age religion (Hexham and Poewe 1986: 55, 57, 72). Where I depart from these scholars' uses of myth is that I focus on describing origin and in interpreting the structural myths of Osun and how they helped in sustaining Osun worship in the Old World and in the New World.;In answering this question, I propose to study the myths of Osun. Myth is a form of African oral literature. I will describe and explore the significances of the symbols in the myth. Myth has narrative, descriptive functions and it is meaningful in understanding a religion. Descriptive research such as this is important in analyzing the relation between a religious lifestyle and personality traits.;I intend to work with one tradition that exists in two different geographical settings. For this reason I narrow my work down to the treatment of symbols of Osun myths in the Old and the New Worlds. I will explore the symbols in myth such as water, color, number, dance, music, ritual, places, names, titles, items, and animals that sustain the worship of Osun in the Old and the New Worlds. I will argue that Osun, Oshun, Ochun, Oxum, or Oxun, are references to the same female Yoruba divinity of Osogbo.;I chose Osun Osogbo as the focus of this study for methodological reasons and expediency. I assumed that since I was born and raised in Yorubaland, I would have the advantage of familiarity with Yoruba language, accent, dialect, grammar, poetry and prose, story, riddle, joke, people, culture, religion and history of the people. I chose to study Osun in the New World because I have spent over 15 years in the continent and I am familiar with materials in libraries, seminaries and seminars. In addition to the University of Manitoba libraries, I spent sometime at the Library of Congress in Washington. And my absence from the Yorubaland gives me the opportunity to reflect on the Yoruba people and I find something different to compare the Osun worship with in the New World. The acquired knowledge of working with the English language and my 14 years of studying and teaching Christian theology, Church History, Mission, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Women in Religion, God and Evil at the University of Manitoba, Providence College, and Mennonites Seminary in Manitoba contribute to the quality of this dissertation.