Yewa

Euá is, in the words of Prandi's glossary, “orixá das fontes; dona dos cemitérios” — orisha of springs, mistress of cemeteries (Prandi, Mitologia dos Orixás, glossary, entry “Euá”). The same divinity appears in Cuba as Yewá, and Verger records her in Bahia as “Eua (Yewa)”, one of the seven Iemanjás, an African river that runs parallel to the Ògùn and that, he says, is often confused with Iemanjá in certain legends (Verger, Orixás, p. 69). This profile follows the spelling of the sources, and the count decides. In Prandi, the Brazilian work this site uses for myths, “Euá” appears 127 times and “Ewá” never; Verger writes “Eua” and “Yewa”. In the Tratado Enciclopédico de Ifá, which speaks of the Cuban tradition, “Yewa” appears 176 times; in Cabrera, Yewá is the dominant form. None of the sources we consulted says that Euá and “Ewá” are the same name, so this profile does not claim that equivalence. In English the name is Yewa, as in Verger. The sources do not agree on who she is, and the profile shows this rather than choosing a side. In Prandi's myths, Euá is Nanã's daughter in two accounts and Obatalá's daughter in two others. In Verger, in Bahia, she is one of the faces of Iemanjá. In Cuba, Cabrera and Angarica speak of a virgin, severe saint. What follows always says which tradition the sentence speaks of.

In Candomblé, Prandi presents her as a female orisha of springs, linked to the ground where the dead rest. In the myths he gathers, water, mist and the horizon are her territory: she becomes a spring, becomes fog, and is the place “where sky meets earth” — and from there, in the myth of her flight with Oxumaré, she makes night fall with the adô gourd (Prandi, myth “Euá é escondida por seu irmão Oxumarê”). In Cuba, Cabrera records Yewá as “Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados”, a virgin who forbids her daughters all sexual contact — which is why, she says, her servants are always old women, virgins or sterile (Cabrera, El Monte, PDF p. 32). Angarica describes her as a “señorita”, the African virgin who represents life, and lists her among the orishas of origin, glossed “la vida en este mundo” (Angarica, Manual del Oriaté, PDF pp. 8 and 31). Mason places her among the saints without children, with Nana Buruku and Oba, “calladas, reservadas, misteriosas” (Mason, Orin Òrìṣà, p. 271, PDF pages). Colors, day of the week and number: the sources we consulted for this profile do not record them in a way we could check on the page, and we prefer to state the gap rather than fill it.

Spring and water. A woman who supported her two children by selling firewood got lost with them in the forest; unable to find water, she begged Olodumare and lay down beside the children. Right there she turned into a spring; the water gushed, quenched the children's thirst, formed a lagoon and then a river, the river Euá (Prandi, myth “Euá transforma-se numa fonte e sacia a sede dos filhos”). Mist. In this account Euá is Nanã's daughter, much sought after: so many suitors killed one another for her that Nanã's kingdom grew sad and dry. Euá went to Orunmila, performed the ebós Ifá prescribed and began to dissolve until she became white mist, spread over the Earth; Olodumare then decreed that she watch over undecided lovers (Prandi, myth “Euá transforma-se na névoa”). Death. Orunmila was fleeing Icu, Death, and met Euá washing clothes at the riverbank. She hid him under the washing board, which was in fact an Ifá tray turned upside down, and sent Death away saying he was already far off. Later she married him, and everyone sang that Euá frees from Death (Prandi, myth “Euá livra Orunmilá da perseguição da Morte”). The cemetery. In another account, Euá is Obatalá's daughter, falls into disgrace with her father for having had a child in secret, and is driven from home. She covers her face with a skirt embroidered with cowries and goes to live in the cemetery. The son, raised by Iemanjá, is named Xangô (Prandi, myth “Euá é expulsa de casa e vai viver no cemitério”). In a separate myth, Xangô dances in the morning mist without knowing he is in a cemetery; a female figure tells him she governs there, and Orunmilá later tells him it was Euá — since then Xangô and his followers do not enter cemeteries (Prandi, myth “Euá atemoriza Xangô no cemitério”). Cabrera records the same scene in Cuba with Changó and Yewá (Cabrera, El Monte, PDF p. 125). Prandi also gives the account in which jealous Omulu traps her in an anthill, and the one in which she lives hidden behind the horizon (Prandi, myths “Euá é presa no formigueiro por Omulu” and “Euá é escondida por seu irmão Oxumarê”).

What the sources record about worship depends on the tradition. In Candomblé, Prandi includes her in the pantheon he describes and reads her as lady of springs and of the ground of the dead (Prandi, glossary, entry “Euá”). In Cuba, Cabrera says Yewá is rarely mentioned, that people fear the severity of divinities like her, and that even her name was not to be pronounced without first touching the earth with the fingertips (Cabrera, El Monte, PDF pp. 21 and 32). This is what the informant reports for that time and place, not an instruction to the reader. What each case calls for belongs at the babalawo's table — not on a website.

The symbols the sources give Euá are few and always tied to myth: the adô gourd, with which she makes night fall on the horizon (Prandi, myth “Euá é escondida por seu irmão Oxumarê”); the skirt embroidered with cowries that covers her face (Prandi, myth “Euá é expulsa de casa e vai viver no cemitério”); the red palm-fiber straw with which Omulu covers her (Prandi, myth “Euá é presa no formigueiro por Omulu”). Prandi's glossary entry for ado says it is also the gourd with cowries that Euá carries in her hand. There are gaps we state: the sources consulted do not explain Euá's number, colors or day of the week in a way we could check, and the profile does not supply them. Nor is any song or prayer transcribed here.

In the sources, Euá gathers images that do not easily fit together: the spring that saves, the mist that dissolves, the woman who tricks Death and the mistress of the cemetery. The works themselves disagree about her family and place — daughter of Nanã or of Obatalá, face of Iemanjá or an orisha in her own right, mother or virgin — and that disagreement is part of what there is to study. This text is a study of the cited sources, not a consultation. Whoever wants to go further should read Prandi's myths in full and the pages of Verger and Cabrera indicated above.