IROKO

Spirit of the sacred tree

Iroko, in Yoruba Ìrókò, designates at once a great tree of the forests of tropical West Africa, Milicia excelsa, and the powerful spirit that the Yoruba believe resides in it. Able to live several centuries, the iroko is held to be sacred in Nigeria, in Benin and in Togo. The Yoruba say the tree shelters an animating force named Olúwéré, embodied by the Iroko-man, a spirit whose crown is said to touch the sky. According to the belief, whoever sees the Iroko-man face to face loses their reason and dies quickly. To fell an iroko without precaution draws great misfortune upon the woodcutter and his family, so the felling is accompanied by protective prayers. It is also told that the spirit remains prisoner of the worked wood and makes itself heard in the houses built from it. The tree receives offerings laid at its foot to obtain prosperity and protection, for it symbolises longevity, strength and stability. In several Afro-diasporic traditions, the iroko is the object of a cult associated with time and with the continuity between the living, the ancestors and the world of the spirits.