Becoming a Yoruba priestess

Khemya Aminah-Clarice Mit-Rahina – known simply as Sister Khemya – is on an ancestral homecoming trip to Nigeria. Here, everyone calls her Osunkemi, and she answers as though the name were pre-ordained, yet another step in a life-long search for identity, for belonging, for a root.

She is dressed head to toe in white; there is a dash of gold, giving added radiance to the attire. Her hair is beautifully done, a cross between a princess and a priestess. Every morning the Yeye Osun of Iragbiji, a traditional priestess, arrives at the hilly home of the artist, Muraina Oyelami (host to Osunkemi), dressed in resplendent style and adorned with the ubiquitous brass bangles of her religion, chiming a small brass bell she carries with her.

She has come for Osunkemi. There are hugs and smiles; pecks on cheeks and gesticulations (neither speaks the other’s language); then they go off to continue Osunkemi’s tutelage and initiation, which will culminate in visits to Ile-Ife and - a Mecca of sorts – the Osun Grove in Osogbo.

View gallery here

Sister Khemya is in the process of becoming a Yoruba priestess. She has a serene air about her; soft spoken, ever smiling, with gentle, fluid ways. But discussing her past, she weeps many times. “Talking about broken histories is never easy,” she says.

A spirit of distension

Back home in America, she had “immersed” herself in her community, a project (low income urban housing) comprising Hispanic-Mexican migrant workers and African Americans. The community had been “torn apart” by gang violence and drug culture; and in this milieu, Sister Khemya found a purpose.

“My work was to heal and bring the community back together,” she says. “I began work for the preservation of culture through song and dance for the youth, to show how community collaboration works.”

Healing was necessary in this community where “a lot of things had pervaded.” There were “Indian (Native American) burial grounds underneath the community. My belief is: some of those ancestors died in a violent way; and there was a spirit of distension and suffering. The energy carries on if it’s not understood and healed properly.”

Slavery was a common thread. “It was important for the Latino to understand that their culture carries a lot of African traditions in the songs and dances that had been passed on through slavery; and for African Americans to know that they’re from Africa and have a motherland even if they weren’t born in Africa,” Osunkemi says.

A disconnect with the past

Bringing healing to fractured identities, goes back to her childhood. “When I was a child growing up in a multi-ethnic culture – they would call it biracial or multi-religious - in our family inter-mixing, there was a lot of war within those histories.” She has Spanish and Native American – conquest and colonisation – in her bloodline.

“As a young child I would sing in a different language, not knowing what it was. It was deep from within, nobody teaching it, like an African dialect. They would ask: what is she saying? From my soul – and they would laugh, like: she’s crazy.”

She was disturbed by her family’s seeming disconnect with the past. “Being from both ends of it, colonisation and slavery, they felt the only thing to be was American,” she reflects. “They have houses, income... like the White American. They felt there was no need to recognise their history about the past. As a child, it saddened me.”

Old pictures showed family members with darker, Creole features, yet no one spoke about them. “Why do we not know these people?” she would ask. “They were almost considered the forgotten people. What was missing was the recognition of my ancestors.”

Tracing the ancestors

She decided to bridge the gap. “I began to do a lot of genealogy research, asking questions. ‘What is the name of your mother – and what was the name of her mother?’ Taking notes. I had to look closely at what they did to understand them.” It helped that she comes from a strong matrilineal tradition.

“I listened to my grandmother’s stories. I found that they came from the (Caribbean) islands. They were intermixed with African, Native American and Spanish.”

Tracing her ancestors, she began to make interesting connections. A tap-dancer like her mother, Khemya took up cultural and ethnic dance practices in university; and found that materials from Cuba echoed the motifs in her grandmother’s sewing. “The dances came without me knowing,” Osunkemi says.

“The ancestors were connecting me through the arts. Meeting dancers from Haiti and Cuba, I felt a connection. The Yoruba culture was very strong on those islands.” The religion and culture had undergone a transition in the New World as Vodoun, Santeria and Lucumi.

“I wanted to know the root of all this.” Thus began a journey to the past.

Yet it could all have been very different. “As a teenager, I went through a lot of turmoil, even ended up in jail,” she recalls. On her release, African American artisans and educators took the young Khemya under their wing, “even when some of my own family had cut me off.”

She started to study Haitian dance and folklore “that was touching me deep in my soul... making the connection with my ancestors.” It also connected her to a specific group of African Americans: “Although they were from many peoples, I was meeting with those who were also [descended from the] Yoruba” – and who were also researching their histories.

Freedom to translate Osun

Sister Khemya - who plans to streamline her PhD dissertation to specifically address Yoruba traditional belief - says Osun came to her in California. “The place where I live is surrounded by rivers... agricultural area, very plentiful. I would always go to the river and wash and play the drums,” and songs came forth.

“I would bring the songs into the community, as a healing, preservation, liberation and a cleansing.” The energies were directing her to Osun, she says. With the awareness came the freedom to translate Osun songs, to pour libations to the ancestors. Not entirely new practices to Khemya. “These ways were practised in my family for a long time,” she adds.

“When my mother visited, we would offer flowers on the rivers. Respect for the ancestors... they were practised but not talked about. They were hidden.”

Sister Khemya runs an organisation, the Pan Afrakan Dance and Music Historical Education Association, through which she connected with Muraina Oyelami five years ago. “The spirit had aligned us in that way,” she says of the artist. Through him, she eventually came on this pilgrimage to Nigeria.

“I wanted to make a base, to make bridges to our past.”

Obama and the central path

Asked why an African American would seek an ancestral home in the age of Barack Obama, Osunkemi poses her own questions: “Who were we before Obama? Were we nowhere, or did he put us on the map? And if he’s taken away, would we be no more? You can’t say Obama put us on the map, because we were here before he got in office, and we’ll be here after he goes.

“They say: America, land of the free. But there are still issues, still racism against people of colour.” Khemya always felt a need to go back to a spiritual place. “I had no place in white culture; African Americans call me ‘light skin’ – I’ve never really fit in. It was always a fight for a place.”

But how well does Osunkemi fit in among the pure black indigenes of Iragbiji, a small town in the hinterlands of Osun State? “Here, people see me – light skin, hair texture, features – and they associate me with White. It’s everywhere.”

Joy like a river

Yoruba spirituality may provide a refuge. “I think the old traditions are to be preserved,” she declares. “I teach Yoga; and in those teachings, there is duality. Yogic teachings teach us to find a central path. Osun, for me, stands for liberty and justice, a sense of balance. In American tradition, we have ‘Law and Order’ symbols - scales weighed even. Osun is like that, it brings balance.”

She adds that, “My spirit always brings balance, since my youth. I just didn’t know it was Osun.”

Osunkemi has no doubts about embracing an excavated Yoruba identity. “Anytime you go into traditional spirituality, you’re going against the grain of the [dominant] belief systems, so you have to know your path.”

Despite centuries of separation from Africa, Sister Khemya believes she has found her central path. “Many would say that once you’re taken from Africa and your blood has been mixed, [there’s no way back]. But I always say: the soul will know,” she maintains. “I was the one child in my family that never wanted to forget. Or maybe the ancestors chose me.”

Sister Khemya a.k.a Osunkemi has returned to America. She hopes to bring the youths she mentors ‘home’ on ancestral pilgrimages in future.