Samuel Ajayi Crowther was captured by Muslim Fulani during the Fulani/Oyo wars and he was sold with his mother and toddler brother to Portuguese slave buyers. However, the ship was intercepted by British Royal Navy and the slaves were released by taking them to Sierra Leone. This was where the Anglican Church Missionary Society took over the educating of young Ajayi.
One of his foremost achievements, apart from taking Christianity to the Niger Delta parts of modern Nigeria, Ajayi Crowther translated the English Bible into Yoruba. This can thus be said to be the first medium through which the Christian Satan/Devil/Lucifer was thus interpreted as the Yoruba Eshu.
Ajayi Crowther was also the one who compiled in 1843 the English-Yoruba Dictionary upon which so many others have been patterned till today. The word ‘Bara’ in the dictionary reads out the meaning thus: “god of mischief, the devil, Ifa.” Here it is plain that the devil and Ifa are the same to Ajayi.
Bara is a word use in qualifying Eshu in some of Eshu’s oriki poems: “Bara ti o logun ika/ To so ile ana re di ahoro (Bara who does not have evil medicine but turns his in-laws home into desolation). Bara l’abelekun sunkun ki eru o ba elekun/ Bi elekun ba n sokun, Laaroye a ma sun eje (Bara is the one who weeps with those weeping and they will be frightened by the time they see Eshu/Laaroye/Bara weeping blood). Bara ni abonimi su mi ki eru ba onimi/ Bonimi ba n su imi/ Laaroye a ma su ifun (The one defecating will be full of fright by the time he sees Eshu defecating his intestines). That is Eshu for you, a god that overdoes things in a frightening way… a prankster.
http://takeupanarm.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/is-the-yoruba-eshu-same-as-the-christian-devil/
One of his foremost achievements, apart from taking Christianity to the Niger Delta parts of modern Nigeria, Ajayi Crowther translated the English Bible into Yoruba. This can thus be said to be the first medium through which the Christian Satan/Devil/Lucifer was thus interpreted as the Yoruba Eshu.
Ajayi Crowther was also the one who compiled in 1843 the English-Yoruba Dictionary upon which so many others have been patterned till today. The word ‘Bara’ in the dictionary reads out the meaning thus: “god of mischief, the devil, Ifa.” Here it is plain that the devil and Ifa are the same to Ajayi.
Bara is a word use in qualifying Eshu in some of Eshu’s oriki poems: “Bara ti o logun ika/ To so ile ana re di ahoro (Bara who does not have evil medicine but turns his in-laws home into desolation). Bara l’abelekun sunkun ki eru o ba elekun/ Bi elekun ba n sokun, Laaroye a ma sun eje (Bara is the one who weeps with those weeping and they will be frightened by the time they see Eshu/Laaroye/Bara weeping blood). Bara ni abonimi su mi ki eru ba onimi/ Bonimi ba n su imi/ Laaroye a ma su ifun (The one defecating will be full of fright by the time he sees Eshu defecating his intestines). That is Eshu for you, a god that overdoes things in a frightening way… a prankster.
http://takeupanarm.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/is-the-yoruba-eshu-same-as-the-christian-devil/