Odofemi
Morgan M Page (Odofemi) -- Hot Trans Feminist Babe, Santera, Writer, Artist, Married to a Ukulele named Dreamwife. This is where I put all of the stuff that I'm thinking about (obsessively, in the middle of the night). Toronto. http://odofemi.com/
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Bit by bit, we eat the head of the rat.
Lukumi/Yoruba proverb from the Odu Ejiogbe.
In Yorubaland, rat head is a delicacy and must be eaten slowly and with care, as there are many tiny bones that you have to avoid.
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The most elaborate of the panels are unique to Lukumi religion and may have originated (and lately evolved a great deal) as an orisha art form in Miami in the 1980s. Generally, they are specially made and richly decorated, with the artist making use of a multiplicity of aesthetic elements to bring out the nature and predilections of the orisha for whom the panel is intended. Rhinestones, beads, cowries, pearl, different types of cloth, and various sorts of metallic trimmings have become the preference. Playing on orisha-related themes and motifs, using textiles of the colors associated with the orishas, their attributes, and elements related to their earthly domains, their relationship with nature, their totemic animals, their emblems, all or some of which may be selectively depicted on the panels, artists mark their work as an exclusive creation for the Olorisha who commissioned it. The panel is to be used solely by the orisha for whom it was made. Shango’s panel cannot be used for Yemoja, and neither can Oshun’s be used for Obatala. Each panel is unique, like the orisha for whom it is intended.Ilari Oba Miguel “Willie” Ramos, describing the traditional Lukumi decorative art of panuelos or paños (those cloth squares that I and other Olorisha make)
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Photo reblogged from Curimbando
” (…) nas mandingas que a gente não vê, mil coisas que a gente não crê
Valei-me, meu pai, atotô, Obaluaê!”Atotô!
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Photo reblogged from Curimbando
” (…) Oxóssi, filho de Iemanjá, divindade do clã de Ogum
É Ibualama, é Inlé, que Oxum levou no rio e nasceu Logunedé!
Sua natureza é da lua, na lua Oxóssi é Odé Odé-Odé, Odé-Odé
Rei de Keto Caboclo da mata Odé-Odé..
Quinta-feira é seu asé, Axoxó, feijão preto, camarão e amendoim
Azul e verde, suas cores, calça branca rendada, saia curta estampada
Ojá e couraça prateada, na mão ofá, iluquerê, Okê okê, okê arô, okê .
A jurema é a árvore sagrada, Okê arô, Oxóssi, okê okê
Na Bahia é São Jorge, no Rio, São Sebastião
Oxóssi é quem manda nas bandas do meu coração!”Oxossi - Aline Calixto.
Okê arô!
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Photo reblogged from Curimbando
”(…) Fui chamado de cordeiro, mas não sou cordeiro não, preferi ficar calado a falar e levar não, o meu silêncio, é uma singela oração à minha santa de fé, meu cantar, me deu as forças que sustentam o meu vive, meu cantar, é um apelo que eu faço a Nana ê.
Sou de Nanã ê ua, ê ua, ê ua ê…”
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In closing I recall a conversation with my godmother, Asabi. I was at the ilé on a Wednesday night, completing a ritual obligation noted during a divination. Being a weeknight, the usual frantic pace of family, both biological and ritual, was absent. We found a rare moment of quiet to talk about our lives. When I mentioned the subject of race, she paused before remarking, “The only thing I can say is that a lot of different people have been practicing this religion for a long time. It still works and it’s still vibrant. The things people trip out about really don’t matter to God… If Elegba didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here.”
A head will find its home.
James Kubie in his article Rootwork: Race, Devotion, and Cooptation in American Orisha Traditions published in That Old Black Magic: Voodoo and Witchcraft in American Culture (University of Georgia Press, 2010). -
Photo reblogged from The Àse Fountain
Werllayne Nunes, “Xangô e a dança dos leões,” 2009
Virile, daring, and righteous, Xangô punishes liars and thieves. Noted for his pride, he is never willing to take second place…Xangô, the orixá of thunder, is so popular in Brazil that, in Recife in the state of Pernambuco, his name is used to refer to religious groups of Yorùbá origin.
Nunes writes,
Faces, colors, and cultural and religious traditions from my native Brazil and other African diasporic countries are the subjects of my current series of paintings. My main interest lies in challenging the ways in which the media typically portrays peoples from the Global South. Photos and other visual images often depict a one-dimensional people whose identities are defined solely by helplessness and powerlessness stemming from their socioeconomic conditions. This recurrence of these images ascribes a superficial identity to people from these regions and fails to recognize their agency. Using these images as a starting point, I lift figures out of their depicted contexts and place them in colorful backgrounds that recall patterns of contemporary design in order to counter representations of people of the Global South as primitive. I then juxtapose these portraits with images that represent cultural or religious symbols in order to create a kind of visual magical realism characterized by the simultaneous existence of two conflicting perspectives—reality and fantasy.
