The idea of a white lady being the high-priestess of Nigeria’s Yoruba spirit-world is a shocker for many. However, this was exactly the case during Susanne Wenger’s time in Nigeria.
Wenger, also known as Adunni Olorisha passed away on January 12, 2009. However, she left a rich legacy of dedicating herself to reviving the traditions of the pre-Christian Yoruba gods, “the orishas”, to the point that she herself became a priestess.
The Austrian-Nigerian woman was an artist, illustrator and comics artist, who resided in Nigeria. Her main focus was the Yoruba culture and she was successful in building an artist cooperative in Osogbo
After leaving Austria to make Nigeria her home, the priestess with one seeing eye became a driving force in Osogbo town, where she was in charge of the sacred grove, a place where spirits of the river and trees are said to live.
In an upstairs room of her house, surrounded by carved wooden figures of the gods, she received well-wishers and devotees, who she blessed in fluent Yoruba.
When she arrived in Osogbo, she found traditional culture fading away, all but destroyed by missionaries who branded it “black magic” or “juju”, a word Wenger reviled.
“Osogbo is a creative place, it is that by itself, it didn’t need me,” she said. Followers even agreed that she learnt about and accepted pre-Christian deities like no other European has ever done.
Orisha worship is a controversial belief. In the past, it involved human sacrifice and there are rumours that still happens at secret shrines elsewhere in the country. Devotees of the orishas can worship either good or evil gods in order to get what they want.
But thanks to Wenger, the town’s annual festival of Osun grew in size and popularity and thousands of Yorubas come every August to renew their dedication to the river-god.
Wenger arrived in Nigeria in 1950 with her then-husband, the linguist Ulli Beier and travelled widely in south-western Nigeria. In 1957, she fell ill with tuberculosis in an epidemic in which many thousands died.
Her friend Ajani Adigun Davies said Wenger believed the illness was a kind of sacrifice, in return for the knowledge she was receiving about the gods.
“The Yoruba beliefs all depend on sacrifice, that you must give something of value to get something of value, you must suffer pain to gain knowledge,” he said.
In her early years in Nigeria, she met Adjagemo, a high-priest of creator-god Obatala, who became her mentor.
“He took me by the hand and led me into the spirit world,” Wenger told a French documentary maker in 2005. “I did not speak Yoruba, and he did not speak English, our only intercourse was the language of the trees.”
She divorced her husband and resolved to stay in Osogbo for the rest of her life. Wenger believed that the spirit world has long been neglected by Western culture, and spirits can appear to anyone as long as they are willing to accept them.
“You need special eyes to see them,” she said.
Enemies in churches and mosques have tried to smash her sculptures of deities and burn down the forest that shelters them. But artist Sangodare Gbadegesin Ajala, Mrs Wenger’s adopted son, says many local people accepted her eagerly.
