An Oshun Pataki

Although I'm not a Santera, I'm fascinated by the Orisha and by their legends or pataki; particularly those of Oya and Oshun. A friend of mine on the website www.ukpagan.com has recently been asking me about Oshun, so I gave her this pataki.

It's a lovely story about Oshun which says that at one point, she fell on hard times and couldn't afford to feed her children. With nowhere to turn to for money, she became a prostitute. The other Orisha found out about this and were horrified, so they took her children away from her. No child of the spirits was going to be raised by a whore!

Oshun went mad with grief. She went to the river every day and wept for her lost children. She never changed her clothes, and wore the same dress every day for months on end. Eventually her beautiful white gown became yellow with age.

One day the river spirit, Aje-Shaluga, who had watched her crying for the long weeks and months emerged from the water and came to sit beside her on the bank. "Beautiful lady, most loved of the Orisha," he said, "I have heard your grief and tasted your tears as they fall into my waters. The bed of my river is home to gold and jewels, forgotten valuables and trasures. Take them, I beg you, and bring back your children!"

Oshun looked at the handsome river Orisha with his handfuls of gold and shining gemstones, and fell utterly in love. She flung her arms around him and kissed him. There on the riverbank, they pledged their love to each other and made plans to marry. Oshun gratefully took the gold and jewels her fiance offered, and fled to the other Orisha to tell them she was rich once more and that she was to start a new life with the river spirit. They gave her back her children without complaint, and Oshun and her children and Aje-Shaluga lived happily ever after.


Nice, isn't it?