The Cosmos in a Staff : The Glory of Ọpa Ọsanyin: An Understudied Example of Great Yoruba Art : Part 2 : Interpretive Contexts
Abstract This essay is a brief examination of the interpretive contexts, embracing Yorùbá verbal and visual art, philosophy and spirituality, that converge in the construction and associative power of Ọpa Ọsanyin, a metal structure made up of a pole with birds clustered round it and a bird surmounting the pole or of only a single bird on top of the pole, a dramatization of the beauty of nature and its evocative force representing Ọsanyin , the Yorùbá origin Òrìsà cosmology deity of the spiritual and biological power of plants. Continued from Part 1 . Image Above Perched on a pole marked by raffia grass, the elegant bird looks out over the landscape of possibility represented by the staff of which it is the summit. Grass and its vegetative associations in relation to nature in general. The pole, upright like a tree on which a bird is perched. A tree reaching deep into Earth and towards the sky. Its branches, the possibilities of existence. Its roots, the source, its crown, the...
