Figure 2:

A detail of the tortoise gate entrance to the forest shrine complex. The tortoise here is “not the comic [trickster] character of the Yoruba tales [as the fox, his counterpart in English folklore] but “the weight of the world, the heaviness of the earth” “flying up weightless by inspiration” “from Oshun: as if the worshipper entering the deeper part of the Oshun forest will be able to rise from the weight of [their] own body into the ecstasy that is offered by [the goddess](Wenger, 1977, p.39; Wenger and Chesi, 1983,p.160; Beier, 1975,p.83-84).