The Yoruba sacred grove — UNESCO shrines, Osun river goddess rituals, and the extraordinary art of Suzanne Wenger still deep in the forest
Oshogbo is the capital of Osun State in southwest Nigeria and home to the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, a 75-hectare UNESCO World Heritage forest along the Osun River that is the most important surviving Yoruba sacred landscape in the world. The grove contains shrines, sculptures, and sanctuaries to the Yoruba deities (orishas) including Osun (goddess of the river, fertility, and love), created and maintained by a collaboration between traditional Yoruba priests and the Austrian artist Suzanne Wenger (Adunni Olorisa), who moved to Oshogbo in 1950 and spent the next 60 years creating monumental br…
According to Yoruba tradition, the Osun River goddess revealed herself to the city's founders at the site of the present grove, and the grove has been maintained as a sacred space since the city's founding, estimated at around the 15th century. The grove's survival through colonialism and urbanisation is remarkable — it exists as an urban forest surrounded by the sprawl of a city of 700,000 people. Suzanne Wenger's arrival in 1950 and her subsequent initiation as a Yoruba priestess transformed the grove's artistic dimension without altering its religious function. She trained generations of N…