THE STORY & ITS AFTERLIVES
Shango is the orisha of thunder and lightning, pictured as a warrior king with red-and-white beads, a double-headed axe called oshe, the ram as his sacred animal, and the hourglass-shaped bata drums as his music. Neolithic stone celts turned up by farmers' hoes are kept in his shrines as edun ara, thunderstones, the bolts he hurls at liars and thieves; a compound struck by lightning had to be purified by his priests.
Tradition remembers him as an early Alaafin of Oyo, third in Samuel Johnson's king list, a ruler of terrifying power. Experimenting with a charm that commanded lightning, he brought a bolt down on his own palace, killing his wives and children. Deserted by his subjects, he left the throne and hanged himself on an ayan tree at Koso, but his followers proclaimed 'Oba ko so', the king did not hang, declaring that he had ascended as the god of thunder. Koso remains his sanctuary, the phrase his greatest praise-name, and the Koso shrine in present-day Oyo is still kept by the royal house.
Among the Yoruba carried to the Americas, Shango became one of the most widely worshipped orishas: Chango in Cuban Santeria, merged with Saint Barbara; Xango in Brazil; and in Trinidad the orisha religion itself was long known simply as 'Shango'.
