Osumare
Yoruba · deity · mythic · Recorded classification
Osumare is a word that is also a god that is also a weather event. The Yoruba term names the rainbow and the serpent at once, with no seam between them, and the serpent is the kind that has its tail in its mouth — a closed circuit rather than an arc, which is what a rainbow is if you could see the half that is under the ground. The registry already carries related rainbow-serpents under Fon and Ewe (Dan, Da); this is the Yoruba one, and it is absent there.
Domains
- rainbow
Sources
- Osumare is the Yoruba rainbow serpent, the word for the rainbow itself and for the snake that devours its own tail.: Reference treatment of Oshumare, his name and his double sense. (secondary)