Recreation of O̩ya Goddess in Akinwumi Isola’s Belly Bellows

Abstract

Recreation, the process of restaging or reenacting existing narratives, is employed in literature to portray historical and mythical figures, including Yorùbá gods and goddesses. While existing scholarship on these deities has largely concentrated on their origins, characteristics, and worship practices, it often overlooks how they are reimagined and recreated in various literary works. This paper investigates the recreation of O̩ya in Akinwumi Isola’s Belly Bellows to examine the theogonic myths surrounding this goddess and analyze how she is depicted in the text. Our findings indicate that traditional theogonic myths present O̩ya as a beautiful woman married to O̩gún before leaving him for S̩àngó, without explaining the reasons for her decision. In contrast, Isola’s recreated text elucidates the motivations behind her actions, establishing connections with contemporary societal issues. Furthermore, both the theogonic myths and Isola’s text portray O̩ya as a primordial deity, though certain recreated narratives depict her as a human before her deification. This study adopts intertextuality theory as its theoretical framework to explore the relationship between traditional myths and their literary reinterpretation.