Chapter 2 – do we know eshu?
I have a great deal of respect when talking about Eshu and I sometimes think I need to know more every day. Therefore, I devour any information that comes to my hands in just a few seconds and then I compare everything I have read. I have learnt that everything related to Eshu is a mystery because it is the bearer of the force that surrounds our very existence.
Red and black are the colours that represent Eshu.
Red represents strength, vitality, energy, efficiency, impulse, courage, power, nerve, and impetus. Black represents what is hidden, the furtive, the veiled, the clandestine and the arcane.
All these characteristics depict Eshu perfectly, and red and black are the best colours to physically represent Eshu.
Actually, the word Eshu means messenger. Eshu is the astral messenger of the Orishas: only Eshu can cross dimensions and go to the other side, see the future and the past. Eshu’s power is uncontrollable and its strength infinite.
It is said that Eshu is a messenger, an astral police. To talk about Eshu also means to talk about Quimbanda, Umbanda, or Candomblé (the different Afro-Brazilian cultures in which Eshu is present).
Eshu is the balance of all these cultures, the link that makes them all work, although Eshu has specific characteristics in each culture.
Eshu protects and takes care of humans but does not assume their mistakes. Eshu gives women and men the possibility of doing good and evil. Eshu only asks for a reward for his work, which must be always given and never forgotten since his anger can be terrible.
Eshu is a very playful, boisterous, tireless, and naughty entity. Eshu likes to make jokes to people and loves to have fun. This entity knows everyone’s weak points and if someone offends him, he will use all the information so that her/his life is much more complicated, and he will not appear when his help is needed.
Eshu puts temptations in people’s way to allow them the freedom to choose the path they want to follow and assume their own responsibilities never held Eshu accountable.
Eshu is an entity that regulates karma: he puts difficulties and temptations on the way, but also gives people the possibility of rejecting or accepting the spiritual path, the place of carnal, earthly and material temptations. People decide and Eshu acts.
Eshu carries out the work entrusted to the Orishas and the works that are entrusted to him.
Every Eshu works for a specific Orisha and every Eshu has its own assistants, thus forming a perfect hierarchical organisation.
Eshu is spiritual with an individual mission and with his own work (see Eshu law chart).
We all follow God's commands and we always try to do good. The bad guy is not Eshu, but each one of us with our attitudes and behaviour, grudges, hatreds and resentments gathered in our hearts that make us act in one way or another.
No Orisha will listen to you unless you have entrusted your request to an Eshu first.
Eshu does neither good nor evil: he fulfils the orders we give him. He is seen as a playful and irresponsible child who enjoys creating confusion between us and the Orishas. What he does is our own responsibility because he does not distinguish between good and evil.
There are no religions or negative entities, but people with bad intentions who will do evil and people with good intentions who try to solve evil. The existence of both is necessary to balance the functioning of the universe.
Eshu is the universal magical agent, the envoy, the Orishas’ messenger: hence, he is the first to receive all offerings.
Before giving an offering to an Orisha you must first pay tribute and sacrifice to Eshu. If Eshu is relaxed and eating, he will be happy and then, he will allow you to perform the ceremony for the Orisha peacefully.
Eshu is the lord of the roads, the owner of the land production and everything related to fertilisation and productivity. Eshu spoke to the Orishas and told them that he would continue being their messenger but that he would treat humans differently: he would make them live with their fears and would scare them. He would become the devil for white people so that his own people would stop suffering slavery. He would strive with their emotions, suspicions, apprehensions, mistrust, turbulence and doubts so that his people could have a better existence. The Orishas reflected on those words and sent their Eshus to the Earth. According to the legend, Eshus became the devil for white people’s dark souls from then on.
Eshu is identified as the devil for Christians because the missionary priests found many difficulties, conflicts and problems when trying to impose their religion by force on slaves: too many gods and divinities for a people they were trying to subjugate.
Missionaries were forced to adapt to the whole Menina Pantheon. However, we must not forget that at the time Christians lacked a demon and thus, who better than Eshu to become their devil? Christians did not know Eshu and their own ignorance made them fear him; they did not even bother to find out that Eshu was the one who had more similarities with people and that all the requests made by slaves were related to their own life issues.
Humans fear what they do not know, and the dominant white feared the submissive black who worshiped the devil, since he protected them from injustice, infamy, and the absolutism of white people.
Fear along with ignorance works miracles: panic took over the whites at crossroads, near their houses, etc. Offerings made by ebos to Eshu for whatever request, where just seen as the demon thrown against them.
Another asset of identifying Eshu with a demon was his representation in red and black, the symbolism of masculinity that he represented and his physical appearance with a large phallus in his hand. Such image could only represent a demon.
Offerings must always be given to Eshu first: this is the basis that everybody knows, but what is the origin of this tradition?
There are several legends:
–Eshu was the owner of divination which was given to him by Orunmila. However, Eshu was tired because humans used to bother him day and night, so he made a pact with Ifá. Eshu wanted prominence and primacy in every ceremony and Ifá promised this to him if he gave him the gift of divination that he had. Eshu agreed and so he became the first to receive offerings.
-Eshu found out that Obbatalá was sick and that no one could solve his problem. He went to see him with some herbs and he cured him. As a reward for this, Obbatalá said that Eshu would have to be served first in every ceremony.
–The king of Congo had three children: Shango, Ogun and Eshu, who was a troubled and problem child. One day, the king died and thereafter every time they made a sacrifice to the spirits or made a religious party nothing went right, the prayers to the gods were not heard, flocks died of epidemics, crops were lost, men, women and children became ill. People then asked a babalawo who talked to the obis. The obis said that Eshu was jealous and wanted part of the sacrifices. No one remembered Eshu, the small black boy who was always annoying everyone. Therefore, from then on, nothing could be done without Eshu being served in the first place so as not to upset him.
Ifá is Eshu’s companion and messenger. Ifá carries the destiny of the universe dictated by the Orishas: he is their spokesman and messenger.
Eshu opens and closes the roads, he has the key to all the doors, he is the son of Oya, the messenger of Obbatalá, the brother of Ogun and the comrade of Shango.
He only pays homage to the greater Orisha. One of its symbols is a snake because he is always sleeping on the roads and Eshu is the owner of roads.
Eshu is a Menina word that means sphere, the cosmic energy in movement, the enterprising agent, the ferment and the manufacturer of reactions.
He likes doing good by healing, removing personal black magic works, undoing works or stopping spells. When a negative entity is removed from someone, quiumbas are in charge of taking it to the right place in the astral.
He is a vigilant light entity for all emaciated souls to evolve.
Everyone calls him the astral watchman, a policeman who controls every soul in its right location according to its purification or spiritual elevation.
He controls the Earth’s incarnations, he keeps the incarnations of the spirits of low evolution at bay so that they do not contact us.
As well as attending our calls and requests, he takes the souls of dead people to the place where they belong, he must maintain the order that God has created.
He puts all the temptations within your reach for you to decide what to do with them: you can choose the path for your spiritual ascent. He does not make you be bad, but if you decide to be bad, he can help you. Be careful, he claims for everything and the price for things that are not fair is very high.
We make offerings and we give him light with the candles we use when we ask him for help to solve the problems that bother us. If a person sends us something with bad intentions, he will undo it provided he is well cared for.
He has all the power over doors, crossroads, roads, etc., and with anything that is related with an advance or a step.