weapon

Oshe of Shango

By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.

Description

Double axe of thunder

Ṣàngó (Shango), orisha of thunder and lightning and a remembered Aláàfin of Oyo in Yoruba tradition, is danced with the oshe, a double-headed wooden axe. Lightning is spoken as his justice. Ifá and praise-poetry (oríkì) are oral; colonial and later writers set them on paper. The oshe is a ritual staff and dance-attribute, not a unique palace relic with a forging scene. Kingship at Oyo and the storm are the two claims the axe carries. Do not invent a thunder-cult object independent of Shango's living houses.

Primary Sources

“Shango's oshe, the double-headed axe, is raised in dance when thunder is his; he is the king who became orisha at Oyo.”
Yoruba Ifá / oríkì of Ṣàngó (oral; recorded in later ethnography)(oral; written notices 19th–20th century)

Powers & Abilities

ThunderLightning StrikeRoyal Authority