AJA

Goddess

Aja is, in Yoruba religion, the spirit of the forest, of the animals that people it and of healing by plants. Her name is associated with the whirlwind, ajija, which is her best-known manifestation. According to the belief, Aja sometimes carries a person off in a whirlwind into the depths of the forest. The vanished one there receives the teaching of the leaves, ewe, and of the healing virtues of plants, for a period ranging from a few days to several months, then returns transformed: they become onisegun, healer and master of medicinal plants, and their knowledge is held to come directly from the spirit world. Aja thus embodies the bond between the living forest and traditional Yoruba medicine, whose immense pharmacopoeia, catalogued by Pierre Fatumbi Verger in his work Ewé, rests on the ritual knowledge of plants and of the incantations that activate their powers. A spirit respected rather than feared, Aja is said to show herself to humans without wishing them ill — a rare trait among the spirits of the bush. Neighbouring figures exist in the region, such as Eziza among the Edo of Nigeria. In the religions that inherit Yoruba botanical knowledge within the Afro-diasporic pantheons, the sacred knowledge of the leaves remains central, perpetuating the domain of which Aja is the keeper.