Sacred Journeys With Bruce Feiler

Osun-Osogbo

Feiler travels to Nigeria with a group of African-American pilgrims who are attending an annual festival in honor of the Yoruba goddess Osun. The indigenous African faith, sometimes called Orisa Devotion, was first carried to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. In company with pilgrims from Miami, New York and Boston, Feiler visits the last remaining Yoruba sacred grove in Nigeria, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, where the Osun Festival attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims and visitors. As two young American pilgrims are initiated as priestesses to the goddess Osun, a Miami-based priest reveals that music and dance bring most African Americans back to a faith in which culture, art and spirituality are inextricably mixed.