Roots ›

Meillähän on todellinen asiantuntija täällä joukossamme, hienoa!
 
Tienristithän tunnetaan myös suomalaisessa kansanperinteessä henkien ja sen sellaisten tapaamispaikkana. Mutta näihin vaikuttanee kyllä vallan melkoisesti se, että risteyksillä on tosiaan niin vahva symbolinen merkitys elämän ratkaisutilanteiden suhteen.
 
Jep, tuolla lailla asiaa selvennetään myös Craig Wellerin kirjassa "A Change Is Gonna Come, Music; the Race & the Soul of America". Ja esm. karanneille orjille jokainen tienristi oli sananmukaisesti valinta elämän ja kuoleman välillä.
 
Liitänpä tänän lainauksen samasta kirjasta tienristin merkityksestä länsiafrikkalaisissa uskonnoissa, jos jotakuta vaikka kiinnostaa asia.
 
"For many West-African tribes, the crossroads were the place where the spirit world and the material world converged, where you went when you needed spiritual energy. For the Yoruba, the crossroads were a place of power and danger. They were dedicated to and ruled by the spirit, or orisha, Esu-Elegba, who walks with a limp. revels in chaos, and carries messages between the material world and spiritual world.
 
Like all orisha, Esu-Elegba combines strenghts and weaknesses. When the Yoruba tell stories about the orisha, they're initiating discussion, not presenting role models. Unlike the sterotypical Sunday sermon the reveals the meaning of a biblical passage, the Yoruba process requires a call and response. Esu's strenght lies in his mastery of language and codes, his verbal facility, his literary intelligence. His weakness lies in his amorality. He loves confusion just because he feels at home with it. He's perfectly capable of tearing a community apart because it's interesting, to see what happens. This brother has clearly got to be watched.
 
But if you need to get closer to the divine presence, to learn the inner meaning of the incomprehensible messages that come in dreams or moments of awe-ful awareness of the spirit, you've got no choice but deal with Esu. One way or another, Esu- aka Legba, PapaLaBas, the Signifying Monkey, Brer Rabbit, the Nigga You Love to Hate, Richard Pryor and Flava Flav - is gonna deal with you.
 
So you go down the crossroads. And maybe you meet a man with a limp. Which, legend has it, is how Robert Johnson learned to play the blues. Laughed off the stage at a Delta juke joint, he vanished for a year, some say three. When he returned, he spoke the blues in tongues his elders had never even imagined. Some say he traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, mastering his crafts; others say he sold his soul to Beelzebub.
 
Black Christians has strong reasons for renaming Esu the "devil". They'd seen what happened to folks who chose the wrong road. If Esu bestows creative brilliance, he exacts a price. He brings chaos to a community in desperate need of stability. Esu embodies the spirit of Beale Street: drugs, sex, violent death. All in the name of a good time, good music. Pure deviltry.
 
Maybe the most basic crossroads for a black Southener led on way to Beale Street, the other way to church. Robert Johnson made his choice, but his music never lets you forget it was a choice. That somewhere a Sunday-morning sister was singing him back home. Or that she was more than half likely to follow him into the woods when she heard that dark blue moan some lonely Saturday night."
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