Yoruba religion holds a single supreme being, Olodumare, also called Olorun, owner of the sky, who is the source of everything and the object of no cult. There are no temples to Olodumare and no priesthood serving him. The ordinary business of religion is conducted with the orisha, hundreds of divine powers who govern particular domains and act as the accessible face of the divine. Obatala shapes human bodies and stands for purity and restraint. Ogun holds iron, war and every trade that uses metal. Shango, a deified king of Oyo, holds thunder and rough justice. Oshun holds fresh water, wealth and love; Yemoja is associated with waters and motherhood; Eshu, or Elegba, stands at every crossroads and gateway and must be greeted first, since nothing reaches its destination without him.
Eshu is the figure worst served by translation. Missionaries rendered his name as Satan, and the identification has stuck in Nigerian Christian usage. In the tradition he is neither evil nor good: he is contingency itself, the one who carries offerings upward, tests people, and makes movement possible.
Underlying all of it is ashe, the power that makes things happen, present in words, blood, leaves, rivers, iron and people in varying concentrations. Ritual is largely the management of ashe: praise names spoken correctly, offerings made in the right order, taboos observed. Offering, ebo, is the standard instrument, ranging from kola nuts, palm oil and cooked food to the killing of a fowl or a goat that is then shared and eaten.
Ancestors, the egungun, are honoured alongside the orisha and appear masked at festivals, speaking for the lineage dead. Religion here is not a separate compartment of life. It is bound into family, town, kingship and craft, which is one reason practice outlived the formal abandonment of it.