All right you guys, we've got fifty-four retweets on my previously pinned tweet.... so guess what that means? I'm dropping a fuckin' thread!!! Stay tuned and follow this tweet to see the thread unfold... until tomorrow darlings.......
All right beautiful people, as promised, a thread based on my idea for a story based off of Yoruba isese culture! Remember, you can always mention @threadreaderapp in reply to any of my comments to get an entire unroll of this thread to read easier. And so... let's begin...
Jirayo is a young girl living in Ibadan. I have not come up with a last name for her, but something like "power gives me wealth" or "power gives me knowledge" or something to that extent. Anyhow, she lives in Ibadan with her two parents, and she's an only child.
Her parents have their own jobs, but I'm not quite sure what they are yet. Jirayo, as well as her parents, are very anti-African, and very devout Christians. Basically, holding the mentality that Jesus is good, Sango is bad, etc etc etc. Jirayo only knows basic Yoruba.
Jirayo has a mysterious auntie named Atupa, who her parents refuse to talk about or even to go visit. When Jirayo asks why they never see her, her parents respond with very vague answers, "Oh, she's not a good person", "She will hurt you", "She can't be trusted".
Well, when Jirayo is fourteen, she discovers a mysterious picture of Atupa herself, hidden behind a large canvas photo of her mother and father. She isn't very sure who this person is at first, mind you, but she is still very curious.
She takes the picture-frame to her room, sits down on her bed, and looks at the beautiful woman in the photo, with long dreadlocks that reach to her back and a native outfit, decorated with tons of cowries. As she does, she realizes something.....
Is her auntie starting to.... smile? Right at Jirayo? As Jirayo looks into her eyes for longer, she notices that the eyes are widening, taking on a happy, almost excited look to them. And... just like that... Atupa introduces herself to the young girl.
Jirayo gasps in shock, but, surprisingly, has no objection to what she is hearing or who she is talking to. Atupa's voice is one of the most beautiful ones that she has ever heard, gentle, mature, and full of pure love and warmth.
Atupa and Jirayo instantly begin to talk, about anything and everything they can think of. They bond quickly and easily, and Jirayo is quite surprised at how much love she is feeling towards this person who she had never met in her life.
At this point, Jirayo doesn't even care that she is talking to her auntie through a picture. She just wants to talk to her, to know her, to love her. And by the time that they are finished speaking, Jirayo is weeping.
She realizes that the horrors that her parents had subjected her to were not normal and not what a child's life should be about. She realized that her parents were demanding, strict, and Misogynistic.
She realized that them protecting her to a scary extent, not allowing her to go see any friends accept during school, beating her if she was found doing something they didn't like, not listening to any music besides Christian hymnals, caning her for not going to church.... ,
She realized that indeed, this life was not normal or safe at all, including in the form of religion. She knew that at that point, she had to do something, and fast. But what could she do? Surely her parents would know she had ran away from her home.
Her mother would surely flog her if she caught even a glimpse of her daughter trying to head to the front door without her consent. Indeed, this would be very hard for the young girl to pull off. But instead of trying to make up her mind, she simply decided to go to sleep.
The next morning, Jirayo suddenly remembered that she had left Atupa's picture in her room. But she was already at school, so she couldn't do anything about it. But then, later that day, she would come home to find her mother standing in the front doorway, the picture in hand.
Instead of feeling the usual terror, though, Jirayo seemed to feel brave and bold. When her mother faced her, cane in hand, dropping the frame on the floor, she felt unstopable. Indeed, the frame did not break.
When her mother bent down to pick up the perfectly in tact frame, she screamed as she jolted upright, a deep burn on the palm of her hand. That was when Jirayo knew it was time to run, and fast. Her mother was too astounded and in pain to try to catch her anyway.
And so, she grabbed the picture frame and ran, fast, all the way to Atupa's home. She knew it had to be her home, just on instinct. And when she arrived and finally met the woman who she had spoken to in the photo, the two began crying and hugging each other for a long time.
As soon as Jirayo and her auntie got settled in, Atupa told her that she needed to show her something, and so Jirayo followed her to a small room tucked away in the back of her home. When Atupa opened the door for Jirayo to step inside, she couldn't believe her eyes.
The room was a square and around a medium size. Small, decorative oil lamps were the only source of light throughout the entire room. Each of the room's four walls had shelves with various sorts of things.
One wall had shelves with powders, liquids, and other things to make tinctures and concoctions. Another wall was decorated with traditional chalk, paint, jewelry, and clothing, all things to decorate and adorn the body with.
The third wall was piled to the ceeling with books, with tons of different kinds of covers and bindings, all looking rather old and warn. Finally, the fourth wall had every kind of traditional Yoruba musical instrument you could think of, all beautifully organized and presented.
In the very center of the room stood what appeared to be an alter, with two large calabashes of milk, a corn cake also drizzled in milk, some fried plantains, and a small plate of rice and what appeared to be fried meat being placed upon it.
All of these offerings surrounded what looked to be a three-foot tall statue of a lady with disproportionately large lips and hands, bent down on her knees, her palms facing upward and her eyes seeming to beg and plead.
Her hair was in tons of cascading dreadlocks, much like Atupa's, but instead of reaching her back, they fell to her hips like perfectly beautiful pieces of yarn artfully arranged on her body. She was dressed in what seemed to be a traditional cloak.
When Jirayo looked at the statue, gazing into her eyes, she suddenly felt a deep, resounding pang of despair, almost as though the statue was begging Jirayo to do something, to offer something. Was she supposed to represent a street begger?
Still, though, Jirayo had no clue about what was before her, or why Atupa decided to show her any of it, so naturally she asked why she suddenly brought her here. Atupa looked into her eyes and responded, "I am a priestess of Asa, orisa of the rain and the trees and plants."
That was when Jirayo's heart raced to her throat and her body shivvered in shock. She gulped and, without saying a word, ran for her life back the way she came. She couldn't believe she had been so foolish to trust a woman who practiced black magic!
Atupa feeling terrible that she had not realized Jirayo was still conditioned in this sense, tried to get the poor girl to come back. This involved a chase throughout her house, Jirayo frantically trying to leave and Atupa trying just as desperately to get her back.
Finally, the two get so tired that they simply fall to the floor, right in Atupa's alter room. After some time, the two both sort things out with each other, and Atupa, finally able to explain herself without Jirayo trying to run away, tells her what is going on.
Atupa tells Jiji (her nickname for Jirayo) that she got initiated into the Isese Society when Jirayo was born. She did so because she knew one day that Jirayo would follow in her footsteps for some reason, but at the time said reason wasn't made clear.
Atupa is protected by orisa Asa, the deity of the rainfall. Jirayo, consequently, would also eventually become protected by her. Atupa learned all of this through divination to the divinity through a much older and much more learned priestess.
Jirayo's name was chosen by Atupa, through a birth ceremony that she convinced her parents to participate in. She then tells her that she now knows why Jirayo must also become initiated.
According to Atupa, many baba and iya (priests and priestesses) of the Isese Society are beginning to get inaccurate predictions. Odu are not lining up with situations and circumstances of clients, palm nuts are randomly catching fire, diviners are even falling ill or dying. ,
Atupa says that no one knows who or what is causing any of this sudden disaster, but that somehow, Jirayo is one of the people that is put in charge to stop what is going on.
Jirayo must now become initiated, receive Asa's protection, and learn all of the secrets and ase (magic) of Isese in order to prepare for the eventual coming of whatever or whoever could be causing this misfortune. But how?
Jirayo must learn from Asa, the other irunmole and orisa, her egbe, and her ori the complexities and mysteries of the sudden world she finds herself in. And yet, through this world, she will also find out that she is not backward, savage, barbaric, or practicing idolatry. .
Through becoming initiated and learning from all who love and protect her, Jirayo will realize what it means to be herself, what it means to love herself, her culture, her magic, what it means to be a beautiful Yoruba girl!
Thank you all so much for reading this! This has been a work in progress, and my wish is to hopefully have this become a trilogy of young adult books. Please tell me what you think about my idea, I'm not afraid to hear any critisism! Ase!
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