Aziza

Aziza is the Urhobo spirit of the winds and the forest, addressed in folklore as 'king of the forest as well as of the earth'. It is conceived as a small, swift, one-legged being, often pictured smoking a pipe, that heralds the dawn and rules the fleeting threshold between night and day; its great speed makes it a guardian of the rare moments when the boundaries of ordinary consciousness may be crossed. Aziza protects the fields, crops and herds of the farming community and drives off their enemies, yet it is also the dangerous power hunters and herbalists meet at the edge of the bush to gain occult knowledge. Its approach is known by the whirlwind that throws the trees of the forest into wild, cracking motion. As a spirit of the wild belonging to the Erhan/Edjo orders, Aziza is reckoned among the intermediary divinities deriving from the creator Oghene.

Parentage

• parent: Oghene

Domains

• wind storm
• forest wilderness
• threshold liminality

Powers

• to stir the whirlwind and set the forest trees gyrating
• to guard the fields, herds and forest and to grant hidden knowledge to hunters

Epithets

• Ovie r'egboOchuko J. Tonukari, 'Aziza: King of the Urhobo Forest' (Urhobo Historical Society / Digital Library and Museum of Urhobo History and Culture). (secondary)

Relations

• subordinate to: OgheneAs an Erhan/Edjo spirit of the wild, Aziza is numbered among the intermediary divinities subordinate to the creator Oghene.Michael Y. Nabofa, in Onigu Otite (ed.), The Urhobo People (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1980). (secondary)

Sources

• Aziza is the Urhobo deity of the winds and the forest, a one-legged threshold spirit addressed as king of the forest and the earth.: Ochuko J. Tonukari, 'Aziza: King of the Urhobo Forest' (Urhobo Historical Society / Digital Library and Museum of Urhobo History and Culture). (secondary); Perkins Foss (ed.), Where Gods and Mortals Meet: Continuity and Renewal in Urhobo Art (New York: Museum for African Art; Ghent: Snoeck, 2004). (secondary)