Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

predominantly British audience.
In his transfonnalion of the Baccnae, Soyinka considers Ogun, the Yoruba god
of iron and war, to be the older brother of Dionysos. Therefore, the Slave leader can
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identify with Dionysos because his counter-part, Ogun , is a native of his land. Soyinka
traces Dionysian worship back to Ogun, as he asserts in his Introduction: "The
dionysiac impu.l.se was not new. Dionysianism, essentially agrarian in origin. was the
peasant's natural evocation of, and self-immersion in, the mysterious and forceful in
Nature" (\II). If the Dionysiac was already present in Ogun , suggesting that Ogun is
older chronologically than Dtonysos, then the African religions, myths and history are
older than those of the Greeks and the western world. The negroid Slave Leader, who
speaks like one of Ogun's priests, has "long been a spokesman for the god" (15); he
once knew the freedom to worship Ogun (3). Just like Soyinka, the Slave Leader
emphasizes that there was a time when he and his ancestors were not enslaved.
physically and mentally . a time before European slavery. colonization and the white
master race brought their new state religion . In the Greek myth , Cadmus, at the
command of the Delphic oracle, is said to have founded Thebes and taken over the
land; likewise, at the command of Her Majesty and the whole European imperialistic
system, the British took up residence in Nigeria and other colonies, defiled their
culture and distorted their history.
Soyinka adds another dimension to Euripides' theme of liberation; by freeing
the Slaves to worship in the ritual dance with the Bacchantes, he demonstrates the