Ògún

Ògún is the òrìṣà of iron, and therefore of everything iron does: war, hunting, blacksmithing, surgery, farming, circumcision, the clearing of paths, and in the present day the lorry, the car, the machine shop, and the operating theatre. He is the one who went first, cutting a way through the bush with an iron blade so the other òrìṣà could come down to earth, and this precedence is why he receives the first blood in sacrifice. He is also the one who, at the town of Irè, killed a great many people in a rage and then, understanding what he had done, put his sword in the ground and went into the earth after it.

Ògún is the most functionally alive of the òrìṣà in modern Nigeria. An oath sworn on iron is taken seriously by people who would describe themselves as Christian or Muslim, and Ògún observance among drivers, welders, hunters, and mechanics continues in places where the shrines have otherwise emptied.

Names and praise names

Ògún Onírè, Ogun of Irè, or owner of Irè.

Olúlànà, he who opens the road, from olú (chief, owner) plus ọ̀nà (road, path). This is the path-clearing epithet and it is shared with Èṣù, who is also an opener of ways.

Òṣìn Ìmọ̀lẹ̀, leader of the divinities, because he led them down to earth.

Lákáayé.

Ẹjẹmú Olúwọnrọ̀n, from the Odù Ògúndá Méjì.

And the seven named Ògún of the Ògún méje verse, given below: Ògún Aláàrá, Ògún Onírè, Ògún Oníkọlà, Elémọ̀nà, Ògún Akirun, Gbénàgbénà, and Ògún-Makinde.

Oríkì: the Ògún méje verse

This is the strongest bilingual òrìṣà text this corpus has verified. It is an ìjálá verse, the hunters' chant genre associated with Ògún, printed in Yorùbá with English by Adeleye 1.

Original

Ògún méje l'Ògún-un mi Ògún Aláàrá ni ń gbájá Ògún Onírè a gbàgbò Ògún Oníkọlà ni ń gbàgbin Elémọ̀nà a gbẹsun iṣu Ògún Akirun a gbàwo àgbò Gbénàgbénà ẹran ahun níí jẹ Ibẹ̀ l'Ògún-makinde ti d'Ògún l'ẹ́yìn odi

Literal gloss

• Ògún méje Ogun seven l'Ògún-un mi is-my-Ogun
• Ògún Aláàrá Ogun of-the-Alara ni ń gbájá is-the-one-who-receives dog
• Ògún Onírè Ogun of-the-Onire a gbàgbò receives ram
• Ògún Oníkọlà Ogun of-the-circumciser ni ń gbàgbin is-the-one-who-receives snail
• Elémọ̀nà owner-of-the-road-toll a gbẹsun iṣu receives roasted yam
• Ògún Akirun Ogun of-Akirun a gbàwo àgbò receives horn of-ram
• Gbénàgbénà carver (carve-road-carve-road) ẹran ahun flesh of-tortoise níí jẹ is-what-he-eats
• Ibẹ̀ there l'Ògún-makinde is-where-Ogun-makinde ti d'Ògún became-Ogun l'ẹ́yìn odi behind the-wall / outside-the-town

Idiomatic English

There are seven brands of Ogun. Alara's Ogun is given a dog Onire's Ogun is given a ram Onikola's Ogun is given a snail Elemona's Ogun is given roasted yam Akiirun's Ogun is given the horn of a ram Gbenagbena's Ogun is given the flesh of a tortoise Away from home the dance artist presents self as Ogun, the brave traveler himself.

Notes on the translation

The verse is a catalogue, and its work is to establish that Ògún is not one thing: seven Ògún, each attached to a different title-holder or trade, each with its own proper offering. The names are occupational and territorial at once. Oníkọlà is the one who does kọlà, facial and body incision, so this Ògún belongs to the practitioners of scarification and circumcision, and it is a nice instance of the iron principle following the blade wherever it goes. Gbénàgbénà is the woodcarver, from the reduplication of gbẹ́ (to carve) and ọ̀nà (pattern, design, road), and English cannot carry the fact that the carver's name contains the same ọ̀nà that makes Ògún the opener of roads. The last line is the hardest: l'ẹ́yìn odi, behind the wall, means outside the town, and the printed English "away from home the dance artist presents self as Ogun" makes an interpretive choice about Ògún-makinde that a literal reading does not require. The line is elliptical in the way oríkì lines are, and it alludes to a story the audience is assumed to know.

Note that the printed source does not use full diacritics; the diacritics in the Original above are this compiler's normalisation of the transcription, and the gloss is this compiler's. Confidence on the gloss layer is medium for that reason; the Yorùbá text and the idiomatic English are as printed.

Other verified Ògún texts

The same article prints Odù Ìdìngbè in Yorùbá with translation, the narrative of the hare that reconciled Ògún and the Onírè, which grounds a specific taboo: the hare is never sacrificed in Ògún Onírè worship, because unlike the dog, the ram, and the cock, it succeeded in reconciling father and son 1. The article also gives a fragment of Odù Ògúndá Méjì: "Ilé ni mo ti jáde wá / Ọ̀nà mi ni mò ń tọ̀ / A dífá fún Ògún Ẹjẹmú Olúwọnrọ̀n / Adigirigiri ré bí ìjà" 1.

For full ìjálá texts in Yorùbá with facing English, the standard source is S.A. Babalọla's The Content and Form of Yorùbá Ijala (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966), which is the richest Ògún source in existence 2. Two well-known Ògún pieces circulate in English-only extracts drawn from it: "A Salute to my Ogun," about eighty lines, opening "Now I will chant a salute to my Ogun: O Belligerent One, you are not cruel, The Ejemu, foremost chief of Iwonran Town"; and "Ogun Passed Through Ilogbo Town," performed by Raaji Ogundiran Alao at Eripa in Osun State, collected and translated by Adeboye Babalọla, and reprinted in Barnes's Africa's Ogun 23. Because these circulate without the Yorùbá, they are named here and not reproduced.

Iconography, materials, and offerings

Johnson's 1921 description, read directly 4:

"This is the god of war, and all instruments made of iron are consecrated to it, hence Ogun is the blacksmiths' god. The representing image is the silk cotton tree specially planted, beneath which is placed a piece of granite on which palm oil is poured and the blood of slain animals, generally a dog."

The elements: the silk cotton tree, deliberately planted, marking the shrine; a granite stone beneath it; palm oil; dog as the characteristic sacrifice.

Beyond Johnson: iron in every form, and a shrine is often simply an accumulation of iron objects, tools, and weapons. The àdá, the cutlass or machete. Palm wine, roasted yam, and kola. A documented practice is the pouring of a compound of dog blood, salt, kola, palm wine, and palm oil over the working tools of the household gathered together in a bowl, which is Ògún observance as a tradesman does it. Colours are given variously as red, black, green, and blue depending on region, and there is no single Ògún colour in Yorùbáland comparable to Ọbàtálá's white.

The oath on iron. Swearing on a piece of iron is the strongest form of oath in Yorùbá practice, and it is reported as used in Nigerian courts. This compiler could not verify a specific legal citation for the court usage, so it is given as widely reported rather than documented.

The narratives, with variants

Variant A: the standard Irè narrative

Ògún returned from battle and came upon the people of Irè at a gathering during which speech was forbidden, an àjọ oríkì or silent meeting. Nobody greeted him. Finding the palm wine kegs empty as well, he drew his sword and killed a great many of them. When the rage passed and he understood what he had done, he thrust his sword into the ground, sat upon it, and sank into the earth, promising to come whenever he was called.

Two things about this. He does not die; he goes into the ground, which is the same wọlé idiom that Johnson noted for Ṣàngó and Ọya. And the story is not exculpatory. The tradition does not excuse the massacre, and Ògún's own remorse is the turning point. This is an itan about a power that is genuinely dangerous and that knows it.

Variant B: the Irè-Èkìtì local version

Adeleye's article, drawing on Irè-Èkìtì sources, gives a materially different account 1. Here Ògún is not a son of Ọdùduwà: the article states that he "is often erroneously believed to be a descendant of Oduduwa and given birth to in Ile-Ife," and that he "was a foreigner who journeyed to Yorubaland," his father named Tabutu and his mother Orororiran, with dates given as roughly 1383 to 1475 1. His son Dahunsi received the title Onírè and became the first king of Irè, and subsequent Onírè claim descent from Ògún.

In this version, after the massacre Ògún was appeased with roasted yam and palm wine by a man who thereby became known as Elepe, the one who appeased, whose descendants became custodians of Iju, the place where he entered the earth 1.

This variant is significant because it directly contradicts the Ifẹ̀-centred account in which Ògún is Ọdùduwà's son, and it does so from within the town that holds the principal Ògún cult. 03-history treats the general problem of Ifẹ̀-centred origin claims versus local ones.

Variant C: the Ifẹ̀ throne version

A further account has Ògún seeking the throne at Ifẹ̀ and being ousted and exiled by Ọbalùfọ̀n Ògbógbódirin. This is the version that fits the Ifẹ̀ dynastic frame.

Variant D: the path-clearing narrative

Ògún cleared the way through the bush with an iron blade so that the other òrìṣà could descend to earth, which is why he is Olúlànà and why he takes precedence in blood sacrifice: he eats first, because the knife or cutlass is made of iron and nothing can be killed without him. The associated proverb is "t'ẹrú t'ọmọ ni ń b'Ògún", both slave and freeborn celebrate Ògún, which asserts that his cult crosses status lines in a society that was otherwise sharply stratified.

Variant E: Soyinka's reading

Wọlé Ṣóyínká's essay "The Fourth Stage: Through the Mysteries of Ogun to the Origin of Yoruba Tragedy," published as an appendix to Myth, Literature and the African World (1976), is the most influential modern interpretation of Ògún and it is a work of literary philosophy rather than ethnography 5.

Ṣóyínká's argument: between the worlds of the living, the dead, and the unborn there is a fourth region, an immeasurable gulf of transition, a chaotic space where opposites collide without resolution. Ògún is the one who crossed it. His passage makes him the first tragic protagonist and, in Ṣóyínká's account, the first actor, and it makes the creative and destructive aspects of him a single indivisible thing rather than a contradiction. Ògún on this reading is the Yorùbá tragic principle, not a war god with a temper.

This reading is enormously influential and it is Ṣóyínká's, developed in dialogue with Nietzsche and with Greek tragedy. It should be presented as a twentieth-century philosophical interpretation, which is what its author intended, and not as the traditional understanding.

Towns, shrines, and festivals

Irè-Èkìtì, in Oye Local Government Area of Ekiti State, also called Irè m'Ògún. The Ògún Onírè festival is held annually in August, with preparation beginning seventeen days ahead and the chief priest announcing the new moon by blowing the upe trumpet for seven days 1. A distinctive feature: only Ògún Onírè receives a ram from the Onírè, on the stated grounds that a son worships his father with a ram 1. Carved images of Ògún, his mother, and his wife are used, and notably there are no masquerades at Irè-Èkìtì 1. Ògún Onírè is celebrated first in the year, before other towns' Ògún festivals 1.

Ondo: September. Irun Akoko: October. 1

Ilé-Ifẹ̀: the Olójó festival, September or October, glossed as the day of the first dawn, in which the Ọọ̀ni wears the Àre crown, held to be Ọdùduwà's original crown, and processes to Òkè Mògún, the principal Ògún shrine in the city. 23-the-ritual-year covers Olójó in full.

Priesthood and the occupational cult

Ògún's cult is occupational rather than organised around a single priesthood. Its constituencies are hunters (ọdẹ, whose guild head is the Olúọdẹ), blacksmiths, warriors, and in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries drivers, mechanics, welders, and metalworkers. The general titles bàbálòrìṣà and ìyálòrìṣà apply; this compiler could not verify a distinct Ògún-specific priestly hierarchy.

Two associated oral genres:

Ìjálá, the hunters' chant, whose origin the tradition attributes to Ògún and which is the genre in which most Ògún praise poetry exists. Babalọla's 1966 study is the standard work 2. 02-language treats the genre.

Ìrèmọ̀jé, the hunters' funeral dirge for Ògún, studied by Bade Ajuwon 6.

The modern extension is not a dilution. A Nigerian driver who keeps a kola nut in the vehicle and pours a libation before a long journey is doing precisely what the tradition says to do: he works with iron on the road, and Ògún is iron and the road. 09-orisa-today covers this survival.

Diaspora counterparts

Cuba, Lucumí: Ogún. Syncretised with Saint Peter, and also with Saint Michael. Which predominates is not verified here.

Brazil, Candomblé: Ogum. The documented split is worth stating precisely: Ogum is broadly associated with Saint George, but in many Candomblé houses in Salvador, Bahia, Ogum is associated with Saint Anthony instead. Saint Sebastian also appears. His day is Tuesday. The Bahia divergence is a good specific illustration of why correspondence tables fail 7.

Haiti, Vodou: Ogou. A whole family of Ogou spirits rather than one. Karen McCarthy Brown's "Systematic Remembering, Systematic Forgetting: Ogou in Haiti" is the standard treatment, and her argument about what the Haitian tradition kept and what it dropped is the most useful comparative frame available 3.

Brazil, Umbanda: Ogum, treated by Renato Ortiz 3.

The single best comparative study is Margaret Thompson Drewal's "Dancing for Ogun in Yorubaland and in Brazil", which compares the actual movement vocabulary rather than the theology 3. Sandra Barnes's edited volume Africa's Ogun: Old World and New is the standard scholarly collection on Ògún across the Atlantic and contains all three of these chapters plus Barnes and Ben-Amos on "Ogun, the Empire Builder," Pemberton on "The Dreadful God and the Divine King," Babalọla on Ògún in ìjálá, Ajuwon on ìrèmọ̀jé, and John Mason on Ògún in Lucumí 3. 08-diaspora treats the traditions in their own terms.