Orisha Oko
Yoruba · deity · mythic · Recorded classification
Orisha Oko is the farm, and his festival is the one that lets everybody eat. The new-yam rite is the pivot of the year across a wide stretch of West Africa — the crop is not touched until it has been performed — and he presides over it. His second office, fighting sorcery, follows from the first in a way that is easy to miss: a failed harvest in this system is not bad luck, it is somebody's malice, and the god of the farm is therefore the god who resists it.
Domains
- agriculture
- protection
Sources
- Orisha Oko is the Yoruba orisha of the farm, a hunter and farmer deified after death, a fighter against sorcery, associated with the new harvest of the white yam.: Reference treatment of Òrìṣà Oko, his life, his sphere and his festival. (secondary)