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Òsun is a brilliant deity whose imagery and worldwide devotion demand broad and deep scholarly reflection. Contributors to the ground-breaking Africa's Ogun, edited by Sandra Barnes (Indiana University Press, 1997), explored the complex nature of Ogun, the orisa who transforms life through iron and technology. Òsun across the Waters continues this exploration of Yoruba religion by documenting Òsun religion. Òsun presents a dynamic example of the resilience and renewed importance of traditional Yoruba images in negotiating spiritual experience, social identity, and political power in contemporary Africa and the African diaspora.
The 17 contributors to Òsun across the Waters delineate the special dimensions of Òsun religion as it appears through multiple disciplines in multiple cultural contexts. Tracing the extent of Òsun traditions takes us across the waters and back again. Òsun traditions continue to grow and change as they flow and return from their sources in Africa and the Americas.
List of contents
Preliminary Table of Contents:
Illustrations
Preface
Orthography
1Introduction:
Joseph M. Murphy and Mei-Mei Sanford
2Hidden Power: Osun the Seventeenth Odu
Rowland Abiodun
3A River of Many Turns: the Polysemy of Ochún in Afro-Cuban Tradition
Isabel Castellanos
4Orisa Osun: Yoruba Sacred Kingship and Civil Religion in Osogbo, Nigeria
Jacob Olupona
5Nesta Cidade Todo Mundo E D'Oxum, In This City Everyone is Oxum's
Ieda M. R. dos Santos
6Mãe Menininha
Manuel Vega
7Yéyé Cachita: Ochún in a Cuban Mirror
Joseph M. Murphy
8Oshun Brass: An Insight into Yoruba Religious Symbology
C.O. Adepegba
9Overflowing with Beauty: Ochún Altars in Lucumi Aesthetics
Ysamur Flores-Peña
10Authority and Discourse in the Orin Odún Osun
Diedre Badejo
11The Bag of Wisdom: Osun and the Origins of Ifa Divination
'Wande Abimbola
12Ochún in the Bronx
George Brandon
13What Part of the River You're In: African American Women in Devotion to Òsun
Rachel Elizabeth Harding
14Eerindinlogun: the Seeing Eyes of Sacred Shells and Stones
David Ogungbile
15Mama Oxum: Reflections of Gender and Sexuality in Brazilian Umbanda
Lindsay Hale
16An Oxum Shelters Children in São Paulo
Tânia Cypriano
17Living Water: Osun, Mami Wata, and Olokun in the Lives of Four Contemporary Nigerian Christian Women
Mei-Mei Sanford
18Orchestration of the Waters and the Breeze: the Emblems of Oshun in Atlantic Perspective
Robert Farris Thompson
Contributors
Index
About the author
Joseph Murphy is associate professor in the Theology Department at Georgetown University. He is the author of Santeria: An African Religion in North America and Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora.
Mei-Mei Sanford received her doctorate in Religion and Society from Drew University. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Nigeria. She currently does research in Nigeria and in African-American and Yoruba expatriate religious communities in the United States.
Summary
A collection of essays exploring the many dimensions of the Yoruba deity Osun in Africa and the Americas. It presents an example of the resilience and renewed importance of traditional Yoruba images in negotiating spiritual experience, social identity, and political power in contemporary African and the African diaspora.
