On ordinary occasions animals are sacrificed to Olokun, but when the condition of the surf prevents canoes from putting to sea for many days at a time, a human victim is offered to appease him. He is of human shape and black in colour, but with long flowing hair, and resides in a vast palace under the sea, where he is served by a number of sea-spirits, some of whom are human in shape, while others partake more or less of the nature of fish. Olokun is not the personally divine sea but an anthropomorphic conception. When Olokun is angry he causes the sea to be rough and stirs up a raging surf upon the shore and it is he who drowns men, upsets boats or canoes, and causes shipwrecks. He is one of those who came from the body of Yemaja.Īs man worships that from which he has most to fear, or from which he hopes to receive the greatest benefits, the inland tribes pay little or no attention to Olokun, who is, however, the chief god of fishermen and of all others whose avocations take them upon the sea. OLOKUN ( oni-okun, he who owns the sea), "Lord of the Sea," is the sea-god of the Yorubas.
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