As Told To Paola CAboara Luzzatto by Adunni Olorisa (Susan Wenger)Iya Peju had a very good drummer. His name was Ayonsola. It was his music that had helped me to reach a deep participation in the ritual. Ayonsola had realised this, and he had come to my house to thank me. A strong tie was quickly established between the two of us: I felt helped by his music, and he felt stimulated and protected by me. He started to send his children to my house: this is a special way of communicating within the Yoruba culture. The child comes in and says: “My dad wants to know if I can come and play with you today”. I am always grateful when people send me their children, even for a few hours. I became very attached to one of his daughters, a 9-year-old little girl. People used to say she looked like me, and I felt she was similar to me in her personality. She could dance incredibly well, with a perfection of movements that was almost frightening, and she was incredibly sensitive.
Ayonsola accepted to come and play for our group. I was very strict with him, I asked him not to allow anything or anybody to interrupt him once he had started. My relationship with Ayonsola became very intense. We felt at first that this was good for both of us. His music helped me to carry on the rituals and to lead the group; my intensity helped him to reach a deep level of concentration.
My divorce from Ulli was by now official and I decided to get married to Ayonsola according to the local custom. It looked like the most natural thing to do. I was not discouraged by polygamy: I was aware that in a good traditional Yoruba marriage polygamy meant independence and respect, without jealousy and without possessiveness. Ayonsola had only one wife, she was the mother of the 9-year-old girl who used to come and play and dance with me. Jealousy was not an issue: we spent many afternoons together, myself and his wife, making batiks and cooking and talking about everything.
Ayonsola turned out to be not a good traditional husband. I didn’t know that two previous wives had already left him, which is very unusual in Yoruba culture. Ayonsola’s need to dominate me turned out to be very deep and destructive. Our relationship became a drama, actually a tragedy. What was happening? The tension between the two of us was something more complex and more destructive than jealously between the wives. He was an incredibly intense musician, he would overwhelm me with power. I needed him during the rituals. He needed me when he was playing, but he felt controlled. We were so dependent on each other that we started to feel resentful and enraged. He wanted to be stronger than me. Within a short time our life became a struggle.
Maybe because of his need to receive inspiration from another source, Ayonsola started to smoke marijuana and to drink gin. He became more and more devious and violent. He started to ask me to use some of his “magic mixtures”. That time was past for me: now I knew that my strength consisted in not using any magic mixture at all. It was from time of my solitary walks in the woods in Igbajo, when I abandoned my scared chain in shrine, and I saw the clear sky behind the trees. I felt had received a clear message about what was good for me, and I always respected it. I was resisting Ayonsola’s attempt to push me into drugs, drinks and magic, but he was violent, and I was afraid.
Ayonsola knows which is the most powerful, subtle, destructive tool he can use: to spoil what is sacred for me. One day he takes the drum that we use in our ritual, and says that he is going to sell it. For me this is unbearable, I felt a flashing rage, and I throw myself on the drum. He pulls it towards him and I pull it towards myself, then I fall on the floor, still clinging to the drum. Ayonsola leaves laughing, I lie on the floor in the house for a long time, and for a long time I can still hear his laughter. I loose consciousness. When I wake up, I am not sure I am still alive. After some time, I realise I am, but I am also sure that something has been killed inside me.
I ask for the divorce according to the local custom. This time I am really alone. But there is in my nature a need for solitude, which in some way is for me also a need for freedom. I have felt like this every time the tie with a man was becoming too close. I now understand this about myself: I have to live alone.
Excerpt published in commemoration of the 2010 Osun Osogbo Festival (August 27). Taken from the book,‘Susanne Wenger: artist and priestess’ by Paola Caboara Luzzatto (Firenze Atheneum, 2009). Culled from (http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/ArtsandCulture/Books/5609319-146/story.csp)
