OGUN and EXU: where do the timeless deities reading of postmodernity1 Álvaro Roberto Pires2

Unusual social situations when they appear, carry the signals of distress evident in the position to which we are required to keep a rapid response to stimuli suggested. The momentary lack of preparation that the new framework requires us, articulates and puts into action our ability to generate "a number one hundred" of creative possibilities which we will choose one, maybe two, they will serve the purpose in focus. This was true when we become aware of the event for which this paper was prepared. The event will be a guiding principal myths of origin, produced by European countries, in the interface opposite to those that were conceived by non-European nations, whose focus of critical discussion will involve the fields of communication literature, history, the arts, from anthropology to sociology, political philosophy. We are facing some possible themes in the set of six panels that make up the parallel sessions of the event, all intriguing in relation to the development of feasible arguments that can assist in the discussion and production of new knowledge in the field of human sciences, considering that anthropology african-Brazilian populations of the area chosen for this purpose. Among those issues that relates to the myths of origin and post- modernism was the choice made, thereby centralizing our focus, at least temporarily, in the direction that will give ballast to the narrative discourse that follows, taking into account the existence of other vectors interfere with the locus of attention. Firstly it is necessary to mention that we are speaking from coherences given within the non-European nations, whose diversity of cultural, economic, political, set the tone of colors, meanings, senses, creativity, go-and-forth of "subjects "interacting intensively through the slots of the social fabric. This construction has, in its dynamic, dialectical elements that when confronted with other cultures and nations, hybrids produce results as interesting as its genesis, from which it is possible to create new accents, new swings, new knowledge, new flavors , others wanting in human polyphony. The union of the theme mentioned above along with the macro universe of non- European nationalities led us to construct arguments that are close to the existing reality in the religion of African origin, known among us, Brazilians, as african-Brazilian3, found in its fullness within the communities-yard4, where sociality, convergence for mutual aid,

1 Text presented at the International Congress of Nationalities Europe Myths of Origin: speeches modern and postmodern, held fron 9 to 11 May 2011 at The University of Aveiro, Portugal, The panel Myths of Origin and Postmodernity. 2 Professor, Department of Anthropology and Sociology at The Federal University of Maranhão (college) Faculty of The Graduate Program in Social Sciences (PPGCSoc/college), researcher at the Center for African Studies, University of Porto (CEAUP) responsible for the line Religion and Ethnicity Research Group for Research and Rhythms of Identity (college/CNPq). E-mail: [email protected]. Skipe: logunede 54. 3 We will beusing here the category of “african-brazilian” to designate the religious pantheon found today in Brazil covering a variety of ritual (among which we mention Candomblé, Umbanda, the barrel-of-mine, Xangô, the drumming, among others), which were derived from the black african culture, amalgamated in the country through slavery and the diasporic processes. 4 Is called in Brazil the term community-yard happens to the place where the sacred ceremonies in praise of the deities of the pantheon of african-brazilian religion. The uification of the terms gives us the exact measure of the complexity that exists in ritual is found in candomble, barrel-of-mine, umbanda, etc. “Communities” was linked to religions or social activies perfmed in-house, everything there is made has the characteristic of being from the collective point of view, although the individual actions have an important role (the orisha is reciprocal gestures and attitudes, is merged in the sacred territory, where the deities of the pantheon that black religiosity celebrate with the fans and the guests tributes prepared on the circularity of myth. The framework of social relations maintained within the communities-yard configures other forms of man's relationship with the sacred, and is the breeding ground for considering the joints in order of discourse that may assist with the construction of reading about the social phenomenon known as post-modernity. For both the presence of two important bodies of religious pantheon african american will be fundamental to our relationship, with regard to the construction of distinct worldviews that can show the difference of a constituent untamed look according to the logic of contemporary thought. We are talking of Ogun and Exu. Orishas that the second title of this paper are timeless, that is, beyond the human temporality given through the demarcation of their chronology. In an attempt to better understand the meaning of the deity, which will have an important role in our arguments, it is necessary to bring to light Verger (1981) when he talks about this deity.

The religion of the orishas is linked to the notion of family. The families, originating from a common ancestor, which encompasses the living and the dead. The orisha would, in principle, a deified ancestor who, in life, had established ties who had guaranteed a certain control over the forces of nature, like thunder, wind, salt or fresh water, or else, assuring his ability to exercise certain activities such as hunting, metal work, or even acquiring knowledge of the properties of plants and their use. Power, àse, the ancestor-deity would, after his death, the power to incarnate itself momentarily in one of his descendants for possession of a phenomenon caused by it. (P. 18).

The phenomenon of possession is to be the link before the passage of human life for my divinity within the mythic power that provides meaning and direction to a certain coherence given to the world-yard built by the communities. We can illustrate the above argument by noting that "Ogun would have become deity when he realized was lamenting that had just been massacred in a thoughtless moment of anger, the inhabitants of the town of Ire, founded by him and no longer recognized her when he returned there after a long absence" (ibid., pg. 18). So the possession within the communities-yard has fundamental significance for the initiation and continuation of the rites of religion african-Brazilian, regardless of the ancestral family which will be part of. This post here the circularity of the matrices that sacred, through the established relationship with their deities, expands the power of individuals to perform as well as its social, optimizing the balance in the world, from a particular position of those who are located in interior of the sacred territory. While we have made mention in the excerpt above the deity Ogun, would be appropriate to start our arguments with him that comes first in any ceremony of religion african-Brazilian Exu. This is a controversial divinity, contradictory, as defined by a single point may result in errors. The best way to define it would be from the word individualized offerings are unique...). The “yard” approuches the concept of territory (sacred or profane), in wchich there are seated the headquarters of the ancestral family, in wchich the deities “assembled” in their children are honored at public festivals, thereby remarking the circularity of the myth fouding through the rite. The community-yard is the space of ambivalence and asymmetry. ambivalence. His ambivalence is so notorious that perhaps we could say that Eshu is the very embodiment of the dialectical aspects of the world. The sociologist Bauman in introducing his book Modernity and ambivalence ambivalence precisely defines the term with the properties that can be used to understand the forces which support the actions of the deity Eshu, like the universe turned on which it acts.

Ambivalence, the possibility of giving an object or event more than one category, is a specific disorder of language, a failure in the nominating (...) that language must play. The main symptom of the disorder is the acute discomfort we feel when we are unable to accurately read the situation and choose between alternative actions. (Bauman, 1999: 9). (Emphasis added.)

This ambivalence has spoken of Bauman proximity to Exu, the god par excellence of communication, one that possesses the power of the word and sending offerings to other deities. Many believe that this deity is responsible for communication between the diviner Orunmilá, the god of the oracle, the men and the deities, as have the myths. The communication through the art of divination has a primary role within the african-Brazilian religion and that originated with African roots. The right to carry out set of shells in the yard-communities of Brazil and is given to babalorixás yalorixás, those who are positioned at the very top of the hierarchy of their homes. Exu is the master of communication when it is present in this guessing game, this time the pair disorder / order of language is present in the active principle of Eshu, which makes this switch appear in human actions, leading subsequently to equilibrium, which yields again the ambivalence in a dialectical circularity. This binomial is present everywhere, but symbolically it materializes in places where people do their shopping, weekly, daily or monthly, the food will make the fortified body, and soul that will be served through the offering brought by Exu. I speak of markets and fairs. We know that the fairs or markets are important for the African people but also for the saint-in Brazil and other countries, cities. In these places of high concentrations of people can find Exu, a sovereign in its fields of excellence, the place where the ambivalence is found as we were told Arno Vogel et alli in his text on the market:

The Market is precisely with the paths and their intersections, the domain par excellence of the ESU. Forget it, when you go shopping, is bad for business. Therefore, almost always found near the entrance to the market, a settlement summary, where the tax is deposited due to the lord-of-thresholds and passages. It aims to win his goodwill, so important to successful transactions in a world where social intercourse is not always harmonious, peaceful and successful. In this universe, it is sometimes difficult to find what you are looking for, decide what is best and pay what is reasonable. Therefore, not enough conversations and bargains. You have to complacency or even the help of Olóojà5. (Vogel et alli, 2005: 7).

5 Yoruban expression that means in ordinary languages is the seller is there owner of the maket. In the cosmogony of the people of the saint, the phrase owner-of-market amounts to one of the titles of Esu. In addition to caring, preferably, the markets we can say that also cares for the people, their houses, the temples, also serving as an intermediary between men and gods. How Verger asserts "... for this reason is that nothing gets done without him and no offerings that are asked before any other orisha, to counteract their tendency to cause misunderstandings between humans and their relationships with gods and even the gods among themselves." (VERGER, 1981: 76). Despite the qualities or defects that may have Exu, along with the persecution unleashed against the religion of African origin in Brazil, both by the state as the Catholic Church from the period of slavery, until recently, was also struck against this campaign divinity, compared to the devil (taint still attributed to him now, especially by the religious neo-Pentecostals). It has been an important task both outside and within the communities- yard rescue the relevance of this deity in their pantheon of all, the arguments against publicized gossip negatively about Exu. This also enables us to offer redemption necessary dignity to the black culture in Brazil, the object of reading and reductionist approaches, tainted by preconceived notions whose pattern you want to minimize the presence of blacks in the country. "The search for Africa in Candomblé" book title Stefania Capone gives us an accurate measure of the joints that can (and should) be made between the figure of Eshu and contemporary aspects of social relations maintained between the subjects, perhaps an attempt by the author to make us realize that there is much witchcraft in heaven and on earth than the useless bureaucracy assumed the reason (2005, pg. 7), paraphrasing here Eduardo Viveiros de Castro at the time made his arguments in the translation of the emblematic Witchcraft Oracles and Magic Among the Azande Evans-Pritchard in 1978. Capone says to refer to Esu-Elegba the Yoruba and the Fon in Benin Legba

He is the great communicator, the intermediary between gods and men, the restorer of order in the world, but at the same time as the lord of chance in the fate of men, undoes the conformist approaches the universe, to introduce disorder and the possibility change. Personification of the challenge, the will and irreverence. (CAPONE, 2004: 54).

In a different direction in the presence of Exu work The Death of Nago and Juana Elbein dos Santos sets the stakes of support both on the dynamic principle and the principle of individual existence within the system Nago. The author asserts that "as OLORUN6 represents the principle of generic existence, Esu is the principle of existence in consequence of its differentiated function of dynamic element that leads him to emerge, develop, mobilize, grow, transform, communicate" (Santos, 1986: 131). Such a view has little correlation with the principle of ashe (power of achievement), linked the potential of the animal, mineral, vegetable, whose hallmark is expanding. If not properly care may wane, weaken, thereby losing its power to enhance life. Decline from here the arguments for treating the orisha Eshu considered firstborn: Ogun. Orisha warrior, lord of iron, attached to all persons using this metal, like farmers, barbers, hunters, etc. >From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution where the progress

6 Literally, the Owner of Heaven: His name is called in Brazil, preferably the Supreme God. (PRANDI, 2001: 568). of the steam engine propelled the emergence of other inventions such as automobiles, trains, machines in general, you can attach them to the group of those under the care of that deity.

It is also the first to be greeted after7 Exu is dispatched. When Ogun manifests in the body in a trance of its initiates, dance with martial air, waving his sword and looking for an opponent to strike. He is then greeted with cries of 'Ogun ieee!'. Ogun who is always paraded in front, 'giving way' to the other deities, when they enter the barn on holidays, manifested and dressed in their symbolic. (VERGER, 1981: 94).

Monique Augras talking about the mythical identity communities in Nago, a book title for the understanding of what happens within the african-Brazilian religion, and the Double Metamorphosis, says

Ogun is therefore first and foremost, the pioneer. Comes from the forests, invented the iron, makes weapons for hunting and warfare, the hoe that works the land, saws and chisels to carve wood, turning it into sacred objects: forge the knife of sacrifice, the bells that calls the gods to the celebration. (...) He is the god of technology. His emblem summarizes its activities: it is a bunch of seven tools in miniature.Seven is the symbolic number of Ogun. The stone represents the key point is in its iron ore. (AUGRAS, 1983: 106).

The author shows that Ogun has great importance in the whole pantheon of african- Brazilian religion, for being present at various tools that are used by other deities, even those who possibly has, according to mythology, relationships, conflict with them, thus structuring the daily community-yard and its reason to exist. On the other hand the stone that represents the dynamic aspect of their existence, iron ore, has an important role throughout the development of contemporary societies, just as we can see the mining companies around the world. Two somewhat different deities, mythical stories with distinct, but which nevertheless retain convergence despite an asymmetry in the unfolding of the myth. From their symbolic representations, their meanings within a worldview that offers life-yard communities, we are focusing our gaze on what has been called post-modernity in the contemporary world. Marshall Berman in 1982 to publish his book "All that is Solid Melts into Air: the adventure of modernity” shook the city of New York with the unveiling and historical point of both the society and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Later the Brazilian public since 1986 has been awarded with the national edition. In the first pages of the book the author argues about the condition of citizens living in big cities, large and medium cities assume the modern condition. This condition, according to the author, is treated as the "experience of time and space." Berman asserts that

7 The use of the ship-yard fot the communities hás a different meaning quite different from that commonly used in everyday life. In the wider society dispatch means “send away”, “away from” made mention to him that must evade the place, going to settle in another locus of historical or symbolic. For communities-yard use of this verb is not about sending Exu away, but first make an offering to the deity that has such primacy (later we shall address this matier from myth of Eshu, exhibited in its entirety in appendices). To be modern is to find yourself in an environment that promises adventure, power, joy, growth, self-transformation and transformation of things around - but at the same time threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, all we are. The environmental experience of modernity erases all geographic, racial, class and nationality, religion and ideology: in this sense we can say that modernity unites mankind. However, it is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity: it pours us all into a permanent vortex of disintegration and change, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish. (Berman, 1988: 15).

The condition of being "modern" was viewed within the avalanche of social phenomena that govern modern life, such as the discoveries in the physical sciences that have provided new representation of the universe and the position we occupy in it, the transformation of scientific knowledge in technological products, thus benefiting the industrialization of production, unprecedented demographic explosion which results in the displacement of significant human contingent demand for societal arrangements unworthy the human condition, urban sprawl and chaotic, "... nation states increasingly powerful, bureaucratically structured and managed, fighting doggedly to expand his power, mass social movements and nations, challenging their political or economic leaders, struggling to gain some control over their lives" (idem, 1988: 16). Berman draws a comparison with the thinking of writers and thinkers of the century. Nineteenth century and their successors. XX pore when they gaze upon the worldview built about modernity. We will note, as mentioned by the author, profound changes in what they offer support to the logic of modernity.

If we pay attention to what writers and thinkers of the century. XX claim on modernity and compared to those of a century ago, we find a radical flattening of perspective and a decrease in the imaginative spectrum. Our thinkers of the century. XIX were both enthusiasts and enemies of modern life, fighting desperately against their ambiguities and contradictions, his self-irony and its intimate tensions were the primary sources of his creative power. His successors of the twentieth century slipped away, toward rigid polarities and flat totals. Modernity or is viewed with a blind and uncritical enthusiasm or is convicted a second attitude of detachment and indifference neo-Olympic in any case, it is always conceived as a closed monolith, which can not be molded or transformed by modern man. Open views of modern life were supplanted by visions closed: This and That replaced by this or that. (Ibid., pg. 24).

Considering the universe of modernity riddled with uncertainties and paradoxes, in which "subjects" are linked, what others have said about postmodernity and its effects? Jean-Francois Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition elaborates his analysis from small quantitative changes to demonstrate the qualitative changes in a given time. The book's focus is to address the issues related to the "knowledge" in contemporary societies more developed. For him the definition of the word postmodern "... means the state of culture after the transformations that affected the game rules of science, literature and arts from the late nineteenth century." (LYOTARD, 2000: XV). The transformations which the author mentions are supported in the conflict between science and the stories. For science from its reports criteria may be considered fables, but to the extent that it is not just restricted to making the statement of regularities, seeking the true, should recognize their own rules. This way you can have on its statute a discourse of legitimation. Just thinking the word postmodern concerns "incredulity towards metarrelatos" (ibid, pg. XVI). Regarding the scope of what the framework used by the author, the event will be followed is the one claiming to be amended to know instantly that the companies entering the post-industrial period, while the cultures probe the postmodern age ( pg. 3). Regarding the approach of postmodernity related to identity, we can approach that Stuart Hall to limit this from a guy who has an identity structured, stable, sees the social reality demarcate it by fragmentation, whose composition is made from a variety of identities, and some mounted, others less so. Hall says

Correspondingly, the identities that made up the social landscapes "out there" and assured that our compliance with the subjective "needs" objective culture, are collapsing as a result of structural and institutional changes. " (HALL, 1998: 12).

The universe provided above will produce the "postmodern subject", according to the author. This subject appears as one who has no fixed identity, so permanent, so we can find the orisha Eshu whose fickleness is one of its attributes.The identity is no longer viewed from a biological standpoint, but history. We assume contradictory identities, fleeting, fugitive, which are continually being displaced. The author asserts that

If we feel we have a unified identity from birth to death just because we built a story about ourselves comfortable or comforting a "narrative of self." (...) The identity fully unified, complete, safe and consistent is a fantasy. " (Ibid, pg. 13).

Hall tells us that those whose conception of modern identities are predicated on the idea of fragmentation of the modern subject, do not do so simply by disintegration, but also by the fact that the process took place, together, the displacement of that subject. This shift can be seen through breaks found in the speeches of modern knowledge8 There is an important intersection made by the author with regard to identity and social life in modern globalized, in which all kinds of interference in life styles, images, places, air travel, communication, etc., will focus on the fact that these identities become disconnected those lifestyles and socially constructed situations. All the authors mentioned above, each from a particular perspective, argue about the changes, transformations in the socio-economic, political, cultural modernity as well as in its successor, post-modernity. Of particular note is the presence of another author as Jameson asserts that the disruptions caused within societies, where the representation of objects and how they change will never be the same. This is not intended to answering the nexus that is inserted into the cultural logic of what was called late capitalism, but rather to highlight the cultural, that is, postmodernism becomes the logic of the contemporary stage. Late or not the various stages through which modern societies have been linked directly to the capitalist mode of production, whose genesis stabbing through the aboriginal

8 On this view of the subject Hall – A Cultural Identity in Postmodernity – where the author mentions advances five in social theory and the human sciences (pp. 23-46) that occured in the thinking that leads us to understand the phenomenon of decentralization. slavery, blacks in the New World as one of their most effective tools, left no doubt of its successful enterprise in the socio-economic, political, cultural, ideological, those societies and their cultures. We are facing a possible vector for the unique knowledge of contemporary societies contained within the post-modern? Certainly not. There are numerous opportunities for corporate buildings feasible with memory, identity culturally dissimilar populations whose answer seems to us distinct condition suitable for those (those) who make their journeys from the social difference. The worldview built-yard communities of african-Brazilian religion offers us ample conditions to make another reading of postmodernism within society today. This place where fans of african-Brazilian religion, closest supporters, are part of a concrete and imaginary construct, a "network of relationships that are around him and, through them, between various levels of existence .Concrete world of terrestrial life and the world beyond are organized around the individuality. " (AUGRAS, 1983: 62). This individuality that is embodied in the human body, its quintessential microcosm, it's feet, hands, head9 has an important role in the symbolic reading of the signs found in our everyday lives. Being the person a set of lines arranged asymmetrically, has an important role in the balance of the world, being the oracle explain what is the role played by each person, which played from the guideline, for the well-being of the whole. Party and all they do so in perfect harmony. This time everyone (as) those (as) on (the) communities-yard african-Brazilian religion "has a duty to know who he really is, who his father is spiritual affinities (...), and that it takes respect, to live according to their essential nature " (P. 63). Closing or opening the circularity of the actions within the communities-yard are the deities, the mestizos, the voduns that through the rites of celebration in every public ceremony reinforced the links are fixing and collective development of the ax. Important element for the establishment and permanence of a community yard-this is the "quintessence of energy that is found in nature, obtained from a specific chemical. The key elements are taken from mineral springs, plants and animals. " (P. 66). The realization of power which is vested the "ax" put all their participating community-yard, people of the saint, or supporters, a circuit of positive energy that optimizes the daily activities of each person, such as those undertaken collectively, by implementing the without neglecting the social dimensions of the parallel coexistence of men, women and deities. The ax planted in every community-yard, divided and expanded during the festive ceremonies in this or that deity, broaden our understanding of the binomial man / holy at the same time maintaining the circularity of the myth of education and, subsequently, their rite. So we can leave for the reading of postmodernity through the deities Eshu and Ogun, we start by two myths chosen among many others, which are emblematic building of the arguments below. The first name has as Eshu eats everything and wins the privilege of eating first (see annex), in which we learn how this deity came to be revered forever in first place in public ceremonies across the people's saint-religion african-Brazilian.

9 The author discusses the status of each member and mentioned his correspondence with our ancestry, with the dimensions of our space-temp, on page 62 of the book The Double and Metamorfose. The condition of being the first african-Brazilian religion has become an event of great importance to all the ceremonies and activities within communities-yard in our country: The Padê of Exu. Opening ritual in which she sings to Exu allow the party to take place in harmony, without any surprises that might escape the ordinary. This was told by the oracle of Ifa, Eshu from now on receive, first, before offering any deities. Peace and tranquility are dependent on Exu eat first. It would be a major caveat here: because it is a deity that has the polarity of forces in motion, it is necessary that they are balanced so that the shares which may be triggered to happen positively. Common sense often weaves arguments that make the evil deity Eshu, whose inadvertent feeding him in the first cause of this anger. >From this framework occur within communities-religious community, the original songs along with Padê of Exu. We mentioned above that Exu is the very ambivalence of the world, besides being the master of communication, one that comes first. We can say that in time the current social communication privileged under which the globalized world develops its latest tools for social interaction (so-called "social networks - facebook, twinter, orkut, blogs, MSN, skipe, among others), with which people in different societies installed in existing continents establish sociality among different users. The advancement of mobile phones (mobile or fixed), as well as the overwhelming presence of personal computers inside the home, networked, not forgetting the experiments with nanotechnology, give us the exact measure of the level of communication we experience today, thanks to the work of Eshu, who commands the mainstreaming of dialogue in the world. The sociologist Manuel Castells to build their arguments on the central aspects of the paradigm of information technology, makes it from five major aspects, whose relevance is pointed out in this text in order to establish the symmetry between scientific thought and reading of the events taking Eshu as "the first, the initiator". Castells says The first feature of the new paradigm is that information is its raw material: these are technologies to act on information, not only to act on information technology, as was the case in previous technological revolutions. (...) The second aspect concerns the pervasiveness of the effects of new technologies. Because information is an integral part of all human activity, all processes of our individual and collective existence are directly shaped (though certainly not determined) by the new technological environment. (...) The third characteristic refers to the logic of networks in any system or set of relationships, using these new information technologies. The morphology of the network seems to be well adapted to the increasing complexity of interaction and unpredictable development models derived from the creative power of this interaction. (...) Fourthly, regarding the system of networks, but being a manner clearly distinct, the paradigm of information technology is based on flexibility. Not only the processes are reversible, but organizations and institutions can be modified, and even fundamentally altered, by rearranging its components. (...) A fifth characteristic of this technological revolution is the growing convergence of specific technologies for a highly integrated system, in which old technological trajectories are literally impossible to distinguish separately. (Castells, 2001: 78-9). (Emphasis added.).

The paradigm built on information technology in vogue in contemporary societies, as Castells asserts, has its genesis, following the disposal of our “look” for the reading of the technological advances experienced10 from the Western framework, in traditional African societies, whose presence of griots in the construction of colletive memory had a significant role. The cultural hentage of a particular society is represented through oral tradition, especially if that company has not set his legacy from the writing. So says the professor Marilene Melo Carlos Vale (Department of Arts/UFPB) concerning the presence of griots and the role of cultural memory in that building. These men of learning oral spanned the wisdon of towns, cities, regions, through stories told in the movement of African ancestry in order to assemble the knowledge that the legacy would later generations was the mainspring of cultural history of the peoples of the continent. The griots were the ones who legitimized the presence of the ancestral owners of the verb, communication in its clearest expression in a society shaped by the principle of orality, the essential condition of African societies, even before the writing was forged. At that time the presence of Exu was already felt and shared by the two companies that held the religion of the orishas active. The Caribbean, the Americas are evident witness of concrete and symbolic buildings that were erected by the work of these deities “in motion” in the body of this supporters in the surrounding communities-yard. This time there similarities between the oral society and society symmetricaly opposite of writing, we affirm that the presence of Exu in the events os post-modernity are clear and evident, the same way that postmodernity is Eshu himself with all his strength and ambilavence. Declining our attention to Ogun, will stand before his myth titled Ogun gives men the secret of iron, in which the deity alone clean the area of land that should serve to increase the crop, due to population growth and scarcity of ife food. The other deities were unable to complete the task, because they used tools fragile, soft, therefore unflit for the task assigned to them.Ogun had only his knife wrought iron, becuse it knew how to manufacture it. Althrough the other deities did nit want around, were the humans who acess to the knowledge of iron. Thus the entire month od December is revered in Ogun frstival for transmitting this important knowledge. She thus became the lord of the iron. Fron the myth of Ogun is the orisha can see that assigns to men the knowledge about the manifacture of iron, essential material for growth and advancement of societies. Without iron the progress of the eminent contemporary world would be impossible. Ogun gave mankind the ability to manipulate the elements that would appear this league strong, powerful, propeling the buildings that we know nowadays. If on one hand the ability of Exu brought forward through the processes involving communication on the other hand Ogun is responsible for human embodiment of these advances, the implementation capacity of mastermin ding with other similar plans, utopias

10 Is should belocated a little over the figure of the griot, who over sees the memory. “originated from the French, the term griot, the African culture, means storyteller, function assigned to the elder of a tribe, known for his wisdom and knwledge transmission; this figure in tribal African which travels to Savannah to transmit orally, the people the facts of its history, it is the agent responsible for maintaining the oral tradition of african peoples, sung, danced and told through the myths, legends, the songs, the dances of the epic songs, is one that maintains the continuity of the oral tradition, the source of knowledge and teachings, and that enables the integration of men and woman, adults and children in space time and traditions, is the doet, teacher, scholar, musician, dancer, conselor, the preserver the wold. The word, which in Africam culture, it is very important because it represents the structure that consolidates spoken orality. (Melo, 2009: 149). encouraged to expand welfare of all (the) city dwellers (as) in the social fabric. Perharps here we can bring to light again Barman to display the 70 as the one that set the changes in the neighborhood of Soho. In this way we will be showing the symmetry between the material transformation devised and enforced in that neighborhood, and the presence of Ogun. Speaking about the change in the neighbohood of Soho the author says Our largest and perhaps most dramatic urban recycling occurred precisely where the life of Spalding Gray was first represented in public: the district of lower Manhattan, now known as Soho. This district of old workshops, warehouses and small factories of the nineteenth century, located between Houston and Canal streets, was literally unknown until then, had no name until about a decade ago. After the Second World War, with the development of the world´s highway, thisneighbohood has been widely considered obsolete and planners from the 50 naminated him to destruction. (...) Much of the aura of the neighbohood derives from the interaction between the streets and modern buildings of the nineteeth century and the art of the late tweetieth century that is created and exposed in its interior. (Berman, 1986: 320-21).

Iron ore has been a long time, the material that establisches the link between Ogun and mankind, the power of materialization of actions related to the progress of society has been represented by this ore, justfor the gift of memory of those who received the power of knowledge on this noble material. The offerings were reminded regularly. The event reminds us of the text of the anthropologist Marcel Mauss, The Essay on the Gift, fundamental aprroach to the exchange in archaic societies. The gift given to men by Ogun could not be refused, since we refuse any gift from any deity. The reciprocity inherent in the present Ogun was given by the symmetrical relationship with the deity from that moment through the offerings and feasts that were held regulary within the african-brazilian religion. As the celebrations held in communities-yard, along with the offerings given to Eshu and Ogun the strong point of circularity that nourishes the relationship between deities and men, the event that we are facing every day optimizes the strenght of achievement – the ax – in the social world, making the utopias envisioned by men, whether in personal or collective level, to succeed. We are facing a major undertaking such as refinery Bacabeira, Maranhão state, or giving life to that “pulls” the residence of any citizen/citizen in the suburbs of several brazilian cities, there is Ogun with the power of realizing the iron work certainly driven by the communication of Exu, the frist that will trigger the creative spark in human gait. These timeless deities should by viewend not only as a receptacle of magical- religious system that operates solelywithin the communities-yard, “assembled” in the children (as) started (as); restricted to only the temporality of the ceremony to be held, scheduled to end. Because they are timeless deities we see them (and see us too!) utopias in the swirl of human wills of individual11 and collective, the “ax” that allows for the materiality of labor “on human nature” , where we will find what “with respect12 to what remains, it regulates, not only to what comes over and breaks with the past” . They speak well of tradition that goes hand in hand with the movements of innovation, disruption, freedom.

11 Text Hegemony and Cultural Diversity, written by Gilberto Gil, published in Lê Monde Diplomatique. http://diplo.uol.com.br/imprima1481 accessed on 06/05/2009. 12 Idem. References

AUGRAS, Monique, 1983. The Double and Metamorphosis: a mythic identity communities in Nago. Petrópolis, Vozes. BERMAN, Marshall, 1986. All that is Solid Melts into Air: the adventure of modernity. SP, Cia das Letras. Bauman, Zygmunt, 1999. Modernity and Ambivalence. Rio de Janeiro, Jorge Zahar Editor. CAPONE, Stefania, 2004. The Search for Africa in Candomblé: tradition and power in Brazil. RJ, Contra Capa Livraria, Pallas. Castells, Manuel, 2001. The Network Society. SP, Paz e Terra. EVANS-PRITCHARD, E.E., 2005. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Rio de Janeiro, Jorge Zahar Editor. HALL, Stuart, 1998. The Cultural Identity in Postmodernity. RJ, DP & A. Jameson, Fredric, 2006. Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. SP, Editora Attica. LYOTARD, Jean-Francois, 2000. The Postmodern Condition. Rio de Janeiro, José Olympio. MELO, Marilene Carlos del Valle, 2009. Figure Griot and the Value of Memory and Narrative. In: Griot - African Cultures: language, memory, imagination. Christmas Lucgraf. PRANDI, Reginaldo, 2001. Mythology of the Orishas. SP, Cia das Letras. Santos, Juana Elbein dos, 1986. The Nago and Death. Petrópolis, Vozes. VERGER, Pierre Fatumbi, 1981. Yoruba gods in Africa and the New World. Salvador, Corrupio Editions. VOGEL, Arno, et. alli., 2005. Galinha D'Angola: empowerment and identity in african- Brazilian culture. RJ, Pallas.

ANNEXES

Eshu eats everything and wins the privilege of eating first

Exu was the youngest son of Iemanjá and Orunmilá, Brother Ogun, Shango and Oxóssi. Exu ate everything And his hunger was uncontrollable. Ate all the animals that lived in the village. Ate the four legs and ate the feather. Ate cereals, fruits, yams, peppers. He drank all the beer, all spirits, all the wine. Ate all the oil-Palm and all obis. The more I ate, I felt hungrier Exu. First he ate everything I liked most then began to devour the trees, pastures, and has threatened to swallow the sea. Furious, he realized that Exu Orunmilá not stop and end up eating even Heaven Orunmilá asked Ogun to arrest her brother at all costs. To preserve the earth and human beings and the deities themselves, Ogun had to kill his brother.

Death, however, not appeased the hunger of Exu. Even after death, you could feel his presence devouring your hunger without size. The grass, the seas, the few animals that remained, all crops, until the fish were being consumed. The men had no more to eat and all the inhabitants of the village sickened and hunger, one by one, were dying. A village priest consulted the oracle of Ifa Orunmilá and warned about the increased risk: Exu, even in spirit, was demanding her attention. It was necessary to appease the hunger of Exu. Exu wanted to eat. Orunmilá obeyed the oracle and ordered: "Henceforth, that will not cause more disaster Exu, when they make offerings to deities must first serve him the food. " To have peace and tranquility among men you need to feed Eshu first. (PRANDI, 2001: 45-6).

Ogun gives men the secret of iron

On Earth created by Obatala, in Ife, deities and humans worked and lived in equality. All hunted and planted using weak instruments made of wood, stone or metal soft. Hence the work required great effort. With the increasing population of Ife, food was scarce. It was necessary to plant a larger area. The Orishas then met to decide how they would to remove the trees from the ground and increase the area of agriculture. Ossaim, the orisha of Medicine, was prepared to go first and clearing the land. But his knife was soft metal and it was not successful. Just as Ossaim, tried all other deities, one by one, and failed the task of clearing the land for planting. Ogun, who knew the secret of iron, had not said anything so far. When all the other deities had failed Ogun took his knife, iron, went into the forest and cleared land. The deities, astonished, asked what material Ogun was made as tough knife. Ogun said it was iron, Orunmilá received a secret. The deities Ogun envied by the benefits brought that iron, not only to agriculture, such as hunting and even war. Long harassed the deities Ogun to know the secret of iron, but he kept the secret to himself. The deities then decided to offer him the kingdom in return he would teach them everything about that metal so tough. Ogun rejected the proposal. Humans have also come to Ogun ask him the knowledge of iron. And Ogun gave them knowledge of the forge, until the day when every hunter, every warrior had their iron spear. But in spite of Ogun has accepted the command of deities, first and foremost he was a hunter. On one occasion, went hunting and spent many days out a difficult season. When he returned from the forest, was dirty and ragged. The deities did not like seeing their leader in that state. They scorned him and decided to dismiss him from the kingdom. Ogun was disappointed with the deities, therefore, when they needed him for the secret of forging, they made him king and now they said that was not worthy to govern them. Then Ogun bathed, dressed with shredded palm leaves, grabbed their weapons and left. In a distant place called Ire, built a house under the Asoka tree and stayed there. Humans who received the secret of Ogun the iron not forgotten. Every December, they celebrate the feast of Iudê-Ogun. Hunters, warriors, blacksmiths, and many others make sacrifices in memory of Ogun. Ogun is the master of iron forever. (PRANDI, 2001: 86-8).