Aku, the hidden king of Irefin

Aku

Source term: Oro or bull-roarer cult

Aku: the hidden bush deity of Irefin quarter, worshipped in a cult of the Orò type. àwòrò: chief priest of an orisha cult. Onírèfin: the chief of Irefin quarter, owner of Aku.

For seven days each year the women of Irefin, a quarter of the Ekiti town of Ishan, stayed shut in their compounds while Aku came out of the bush. Aku is a bullroarer cult of the Orò kind, and it was held to be too great for one man to own: the quarter’s chief possesses it, but the god chose its priest from another lineage, so that no quarrel between them could split Irefin apart. Its three priests lead the chiefs to the bush shrine to kill a goat, where once they killed a stranger, and the high priest reads Aku’s voice through kola nuts, laying fresh taboos on each chief. The priests of the other gods call Aku their king. They say it saved Irefin from slave raiders in the nineteenth century and from smallpox sent by rival towns, and they meet at its shrine to fix the dates of their own festivals.

Aku is a mystery of the bush, a type of Oro or bull-roarer cult which excludes women and confines them to their compounds during its annual seven-day performance.

Andrew Apter, Cahiers d’Études africaines 35 (1995), p. 387

Particulars

Object

The bullroarer of the Aku cult; its form is not described.

Function

Annual seven-day performance of a hidden bush cult of the Orò type, during which women are confined to their compounds; its priests bring the chiefs to the bush shrine for sacrifice, read Aku’s voice by kola divination and set the festival dates of the quarter’s other cults.