Oshe Shango Dance Wand
The oshe is the carved wooden dance wand of the Yoruba Shango cult, its upper end shaped into a double-bladed axe, the emblem of Shango, the god of thunder and lightning. Dancers of the cult swing paired oshe during worship, and the axe is said to carry the deity's power: the flash of the blade is his lightning, the heft of the wood his strength, and the double edge his two faces of destruction and renewal. Older examples are carved with a face of the deity or of a priestess, and the wand is kept on the shrine and treated with respect, often touched to the ground before the dance begins. The o