i can be a reference librarian

Jane asks: I have a question about Orixas: how would you define the word? Are they saints? Deities...? And how many are there?

I’m not sure exactly what the proper word would be. Wikipedia refers to orixas (or orishas) as a type of spirit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orisha):

An Orisha (also spelled Orisa and Orixá) is a spirit that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare (God) in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system. … Ori literally means the head, but in spiritual matters is taken to mean an inner portion of the soul which determines personal destiny and success. Ase, which also spelled “Axe,” “Ashe,” or “Ache,” is the life-force that runs though all things, living and inanimate. Ase is the power to make things happen. It is an affirmation that is used in greetings and prayers, as well as a concept about spiritual growth. Orisha devotees strive to obtain Ase through Iwa-Pele or gentle and good character, in turn they experience alignment with the Ori or what others might call inner peace or satisfaction with life.

The religion is practiced differently in different places in the Americas (including Brazil, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Mexico, the U.S., and Venezuela). Candomblé is one manifestation and Santería is another. That same wikipedia article has a “partial” list of the orishas that totals 14. One of our religion professors gave me a list that counts seven as the “major” orishas. There is variation among spelling as well and this all seems to be due to the diaspora of the Yoruba religion across the Americas. The Wikipedia article on Candomblé says: “Some scholars argue that the religion is African peoples uniting under similar African practices, making the religion a New World practice instead of a remnant of African practice.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candombl%C3%A9)

The Portuguese Catholics banned Candomblé (as they did capoeira) and slaves began to associate the orishas with Catholic saints as a way to hide their religious practice. They would celebrate particular saints’ days by invoking the associated orisha and would publicly honor the saints when doing the Candomblé ritual dances. Over time the two became quite intertwined in Brazil (as did some Native American traditions). It reminded me much of the Catholics in the southwest that lit candles on Friday nights & had other Jewish rituals without knowing or understanding that their ancestors had been expelled from Spain. But in Brazil, the Candomblé heritage seems to have stayed whole at a higher conscious level. Both the rituals and the underlying orisha spirituality have survived. The tour guide in Cachoeria said that the Catholic Church has come to terms with this only recently after scholarship and tourism have brought the connections out into the open. She said the Catholic Church was finally “forced to admit” what they probably already knew, that the Yorbuba pantheon was really at the heart of many of the Afro-Brazilian Catholic rituals.

Walked more around Salvador today and took some photos and spent out the rest of my reales (bought a necklace & some more orisha-related-items).

these are in the Church of Sao Francisco. Portuguese tiles:





wax-museum-like statues of saints. The statues have real hair. Nuns were not allowed to cut their hair and when they died, their hair was then cut for these statues:

And from last week, here’s the photo of our workstudy students (courtesy of Sherri): An, Lindsay, Erika, Ericka, and Roxanne. We were celebrating Erika’s birthday before we arrived in Brazil.

I'll post more about them as we go along. I just left the 7th deck watching us pull out of port in Brazil. We're now headed across the Atlantic. It's too late tonight to articulate anything profound, but I'm definitely feeling that in my soul: pulling out of port, watching the pilot jump off the ship and turn around to head back to Salvador, while we start out into the Atlantic ... Watching the lights become distant behind us ... it's beautiful ... goodnight to you all here in the Americas ...