Xevioso

What it is

Xevioso is a thunder god of the Ewe and Dahomean (Fon) religious world, honoured in southern Benin. Practitioners count him among the heavenly vodun, the ji-vodun, and he heads a large family of smaller vodun beneath him. Thunder, lightning and rain are his. He is held to be righteous rather than merely powerful: liars, thieves and villains are said to meet punishment at his hand, and temple bas-reliefs in some places show him as a man with a slaughtered being at his feet. He is the twin brother of Gun and one of the children of Mawu and Lisa. In Fon he is also Jivodun, the vodun of rain.

Where it comes from

Xevioso belongs to the religious world shared by the Ewe and the Fon of Dahomey, and is known among the peoples of southern Benin. In that cosmology he is a child of Mawu and Lisa and the twin brother of Gun. His name has travelled: it was borrowed into Yoruba as Xɛbiosò, and Fon speakers also call the same divinity Jivodun, the vodun of rain. The long list of written forms, from Xɛviosò and Xɛviesò to Hevioso and Hebioso, shows how often the name has been set down in different scripts and languages.

How it is done

Custom gathers around the strike itself. If lightning sets a house alight, the fire is not put out; a priest of the Xevioso cult is summoned instead, and the building stays unrestored until an atonement rite has been held, so that the god's anger is not carried to other people. Priests then look into the cause with fa, the divination system. A person killed by lightning receives no ordinary burial: the remains are burned and the bones kept, and in some parts of Benin the body is shown in front of a temple to Xevioso.

Tools and materials

The cult's own emblem is an axe with crescent-shaped blades, one or more of them fixed to each other; an initiated member acquires one, and it is carried at ceremonies and religious celebrations. The same blade shape marks other objects linked to the god, and the double-headed axe stands for his two sides, judgement on one edge and renewal on the other. Stones called sokpe, black ones looked for after a storm, are held to fall during his rage and to carry divine power, àzě (aṣẹ). Priests of the Yeve society dig prehistoric stone axes out of struck ground and call them his thunderbolts.

What it is for

People turn to Xevioso as the enforcer of a moral order. Oaths, perjury and theft are felt to fall under his lightning, and a strike is read as a verdict rather than an accident, a judgement that cannot be appealed. Rain is the gentler half of the same figure: he is said to send it to the earth vodun Sakpata, and with it fertility for fields. When his anger lands on a household, the work of the priests is atonement and purification, so that the harm stops where it fell.

Who does it

The rites are in the hands of priests of the Xevioso cult, who are called once lightning has struck and who carry out the atonement. Priests of the Yeve secret society are the ones who excavate a struck site for thunderstones, and any place hit by a bolt is held to need their purification. Entry into the cult comes by initiation: the ritual axe is acquired by an initiated member and used in ceremonies and religious celebrations. The fa divination system supplies the diagnosis the priests work from.

Peoples and places

The god is honoured among the Ewe and the Fon, and is known to populations of southern Benin. The Fon also call him Jivodun, and the name crossed into Yoruba as Xɛbiosò. In Yoruba religion the earth vodun Sakpata is named Sopona, and the two are held to be brothers, both of violent temper; their quarrels are blamed for long droughts, crop failure and barrenness in women. Death by lightning is treated as a punishment across West Africa.

What people believe

Behind the customs lies a cosmology of law. Xevioso belongs to the heavenly vodun and serves as enforcer of Se, the cosmic order, so his lightning is read as a weapon and as a kind of sight that exposes hidden wrongdoing, sorcery or perjury. Thunder is his voice, and an unusually loud clap is taken as a warning. The rain that follows is mercy, cooling the ground and bringing fertility. He is said to take the form of a ram, whose curved horns echo the path of a bolt, or of a great bird whose wingbeats are thunder. Stones left after a storm hold his power, àzě.

When it is done

His occasions are meteorological rather than fixed. A thunderstorm is the moment he is felt to act, and its parts carry separate meanings: the flash as exposure, the clap as a warning, the rain as mercy. Afterwards comes the work at the struck place, the retrieval of stones, and the atonement that must come before a burned house is rebuilt. Some matters are read on the scale of a season, since a quarrel between Xevioso and Sakpata is blamed for long droughts and crop failure.

Compare and confuse

The nearest relative is Shango, the Yoruba thunder deity, and Yoruba speakers borrowed this god's name as Xɛbiosò. Within the same pantheon his twin is Gun, and his partner in weather is the earth vodun Sakpata, called Sopona in Yoruba religion. Fon speakers call him Jivodun, the rain vodun. He is also counted within Candomblé.

Today

Xevioso is worshipped in West Africa, and the cult around him is active. Temples in some places carry bas-reliefs of him. In Benin, ritual axes tied to the cult are seen, acquired by initiated members and used at ceremonies and religious festivals. Priests of the Yeve society excavate struck ground for thunderstones. Fon speakers also name him Jivodun.

Questions people ask about Xevioso

Good reading and sources

• Xɛvioso on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data