History of ÀYÀN ÀGALÚ

ÀYÀN ÀGALÚ

This is the name of the òrìṣà of drum makers, drummers, music, and all other merry makers in Yorùbá land. It may also be called Àyángalú.

Though a less prominent Òrìṣà, the controversy sorrounding the identity of Àyàn is much. For example, while he is considered a male Òrìṣà in almost all parts of Yorùbá land, it is only in Ọ̀yọ́ tradition that she is considered a female deity. In fact, Ọ̀yọ́ tradition has it that she was one of the wives of an Àlàáfin (yet to be known) and she used to praise her Lord, Àlàáfin with her drum.

In every other parts of Yorùbáland, Àyàn is a male figure. In fact, this was the reason why it used to be a taboo for a woman to be a drummer in the ancient time in Yorùbá land. A woman can be a singer, she can reference and revere Àyàn. She can be a chanter or even an igbá or agbè beater, she would honour Àyàn in her performance alongside other deities. However, she cannot be a drummer and by drum we mean any membranophone instrument of the yorùbá ensemble like bàtá, dùndún, gángan etc.

Since majority of the Yorùbá takes Àyàn to be a male deity except Ọ̀yọ́, we are of the opinion that personality absorption happened in the case of the woman referred to as Ayan in Ọ̀yọ́. It is a common thing for people to refer to a person by the name of his or her deity in the ancient time especially if the name of the deity appears in his or her name. For example, Yorùbá of the ancient period see nothing wrong in calling someone bearing Ṣàngófúnkẹ́ or Àyànníkẹ̀, Ṣàngó or Ayan respectively. That’s the same way we would refer to the two women bearing the names above as Fúnnkẹ́ and Níkẹ̀ẹ́ in today’s world.

This personality absorption can be seen in other far flung Yorùbá dialect like Benin Republic where Odùduwà assumed female personality among some Yorùbá people.

To be continued.