A vestment worn by one who is celebrating, calling, Orisa Eshu Elegba.
The Orishas and everything about Yoruba culture is fascinating. You cannot come to the end of it, ever acquire knowledge of it all. For one thing, it isn't a quaint folkloric religion and way of life, but a continually evolving, reacting, active culture and religion.
For instance, this vestment, composed partly of so many cowrie shells, is worn over one shoulder, and though you can't see them here, there are metal bands that keep it in place, much in the same way such bands kept a lyre of a certain sort stable enough to be played with two hands. It is more than likely that the wearer is playing a bata drum, as the three Bata are the drums of the orishas. All those shells have some movement, which means they touch each other, and make some sound.
Imagine now that the wearer of this vestment is dancing -- and / or even playing drums. All these various polyrhythms surround the wearer, and ripple out in an ever growing pool of rhythm. The cowries are clicking, adding their own bit to the soundscape -- as if those tiny sounds are the prepositions of rhythm, helping in their own way to tie together the much larger, prominent rhythms, informing direction, time and place.
There are so many parts worn on a Yoruba celebrant's body that will do this, and they all speak together too, just as the rhythms of a Havana rumbero's feet speak to the rhythms of the drummers, as the bells on the drums speak back to the feet and the drums.
Another reflection of the deep mesh of the Yoruba world, where all is connected.
“Elegba or Elegbara is both a cognomen and aspects of the orisha Eshu. Elegba is the trickster and the keeper of ase. He opens and closes the doors to opportunity. He is the policeman of the spirit world. He has the ability to turn order into chaos. He is the spirit that allows transformation. It is Elegba who offers you choices. It is Elegba who is the divine messenger, carrying prayers, petitions and sacrifices to other orisha and spirits. He is always appeased first because he is capable of disrupting or misguiding prayers, offerings, sacrifices and rituals."
“Eshu is the most complex orisha in the Yoruba pantheon. Known to have twenty-one different aspects, Eshu is known as the Trickster. He is the keeper of Force (Ase). He is the divine messenger, carrying prayers, petitions, food and sacrifices to the orisha. He is the Policeman of the orisha, who deals out punishment, when it is due.”
In Cuba, in Santería, he is called Eleggua, and in Haiti, in Vodoun, he is called Papa Legba.
