The white priestess of 'black magic'
By Andrew Walker
BBC News, Osogbo, Nigeria
Bent double by age, the high-priestess of Nigeria's Yoruba spirit-world shuffles forward from under the trees, reaching out a white, blotchy hand in welcome.
Half a lifetime ago, Susanne Wenger dedicated herself to reviving the traditions of the pre-Christian Yoruba gods, "the orishas", and left Austria to make Nigeria her home.
The frail 94-year-old artist, with one seeing eye, has been a driving force in Osogbo town, where she is in charge of the sacred grove, a place where spirits of the river and trees are said to live.
In an upstairs room of her house, surrounded by carved wooden figures of the gods, she receives well-wishers and devotees, who she blesses in fluent Yoruba.
When she arrived here, she found traditional culture in abeyance, all but destroyed by missionaries who branded it "black magic" or "juju", a word Mrs Wenger reviles.
Friends paint a picture of a dedicated, tough and far-sighted leader who has helped revive a culture thought destroyed by Christian and Muslim evangelists, and secured protection for one of the Yoruba tradition's most sacred sites.
But she is very humble about her achievements.
"Osogbo is a creative place, it is that by itself, it didn't need me," she says.
Followers say she has learned about and accepted pre-Christian deities like no other European has ever done.
Orisha worship is a controversial belief. In the past it involved human sacrifice and there are rumours that still happens at secret shrines elsewhere in the country.
Devotees of the orishas can worship either good or evil gods in order to get what they want.
But thanks to Mrs Wenger, the town's annual festival of Osun has grown in size and popularity and thousands of Yorubas come every August to renew their dedication to the river-god.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7595841.stm
